Florence Allen Was More Than a First

The first female judge in America was impressive for reasons beyond her sex. Turn any article into a podcast. Upgrade now to start listening. Members can share articles with friends & family to bypass the paywall. Florence Allen’s decision to become a lawyer came to her “like a flash out of the blue,” a “revelation on high.” It was an inconvenient one. When Allen entered law school in 1909, women could not vote, many schools would not admit them, and only about 1 percent of American lawyers were women. Anastasia Boden is director of constitutional scholarship at the Pacific Legal Foundation, where she hosts the Supreme Court podcast, In Dissent. She is also a columnist for SCOTUSblog. More We Think You’d Like