Following the threads of a bygone dress code for women lawyers
Every time Lelia Robinson prepared to take a case to court, she confronted a nagging problem — what to do about her hat. A remarkably accomplished woman, Robinson graduated fourth in her law class, cum laude, in 1881, the first woman ever to graduate from Boston University School of Law. In 1882, she became the first woman to gain admission to the Massachusetts bar. Yet, despite her ability to open institutional doors to women, Robinson could not avoid the persistent question about her clothes: “Shall the woman attorney wear her hat when arguing a case or making a motion in court?” she asked her fellow female lawyers. “Or shall she remove it?”
Robinson’s query was not a frivolous matter of fashion. Rather, it was a serious concern to every 19th century woman who prepared to enter the courtroom to practice law. Social etiquette demanded that respectable women appear in public wearing hats, but professional etiquette required lawyers to remove them when they entered the courtroom. Robinson’s question about her hat transcended matters of fashion, shedding light on a dilemma that continued long after women broke the institutional barriers to the legal profession: How to balance gender with professional identity?
In an era that emphasized the virtues of gender difference, the woman lawyer of the late 19th century straddled two worlds. As a woman, her place was at home, the caretaker of domestic and family concerns. As a lawyer, her place was in the office and the courtroom, the protector of justice and freedom. As a woman, she was expected to be modest, sentimental and caring. As a lawyer, she needed to be assertive, rational and objective. At every turn, a woman lawyer had to balance these competing identities.
When she entered the courtroom, for example, a woman attorney had to wear an outfit that conveyed at once seriousness and softness, objectivity and sentimentality, professionalism and femininity. To achieve this balance, women lawyers typically wore a plain black outfit, accented by jewelry or lace. The simplicity and dark colors mirrored the suits of men, alluding to professional identification with male colleagues. The extra adornments telegraphed that women lawyers were still ladies. Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States (in 1879), wore a gold brooch in the shape of a scissors and thimble. Clara Foltz, a pioneering woman lawyer in California, also wore a gold brooch, as well as golden butterflies attached to bands of black velvet at her wrists.
Nineteenth-century women lawyers agreed on the appropriate attire for the courtroom — except when it involved the matter of the hat. Many concurred with Robinson, who preferred to keep her hat on. “It is surely no mark of disrespect to the court for a woman to appear at the bar in her bonnet, which it is customary for her to wear in church,” Robinson insisted in 1888.
But others, like Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Rockford, Ill., disagreed. “Some seem to think that a bonnet is absolutely necessary on a woman’s head to redeem her from the curse deserved for lifting up her voice on the rostrum ... I object on principle.” Still others, like Letitia Burlingame of Joliet, Ill., rejected both sides of the argument, professing instead a woman lawyer’s right to wear a hat in court “if she prefers.”
With such diverse opinions remaining until the end of the 19th century, it was up to a younger generation of women lawyers in the 20th century to ultimately resolve the hat debate. By 1920, women lawyers had overwhelmingly given up the hat as a vestige of the Victorian ladydom of their mothers and grandmothers, agreeing with an article in the Women Lawyers Journal that declared that the hat should “be tabooed” in the courtroom. In this era — when 27 of 129 law schools admitted women, every state bar was open to women, and the suffrage amendment made them full and equal citizens — younger women adopted a new code of fashion in the courtroom that embraced the promise of gender equality.
This new dress code embodied more than a rejection of the hat. In their quest for a gender-neutral standard of attire, women lawyers urged all lawyers, men and women, to wear a robe in court. This was not an original idea. Former President William Howard Taft had already called for the robe, believing it would give all lawyers more professional respect. But feminist lawyers saw additional virtues in the robe and embraced it as a symbol of gender equality that would erase “sex consciousness” in the courtroom.
Still, amid calls for gender equality, individual women lawyers continued to find personal ways to convey their femininity in court. Some wore pearls; others strategically placed their purse, handkerchief or gloves in view of the judge and jury. But very few wore a hat, the 19th century remnant of female respectability and gender difference.
While the issue of the hat was resolved by the 1920s, questions about what constituted an appropriate dress-for-success outfit for the professional woman lingered. In the last quarter of the century, as the second wave of feminism waxed and waned, women first adopted tailored skirt suits with ties, then pantsuits to emulate men’s attire, as the clothing industry sought to meet the needs of the growing population of professional women.
More recently, a younger generation has adopted shorter, fitted skirts, in the name of gender equality. On the political stage, Hillary Clinton’s tailored pantsuits and Sarah Palin’s short skirts reveal the spectrum of contemporary professional women’s attire, while also illuminating a strong link to women lawyers of the past.
But perhaps 19th-century lawyer Margaret Wilcox of Milwaukee spoke for women of all eras, foreshadowing the diversity of outfits and colors worn by today’s female lawyers. Harking back to the natural rights language of the 18th century, she declared, “It is the inalienable right of each lady [lawyer] to follow her ‘own sweet will.’ ”
Virginia G. Drachman is the Arthur and Lenore Stern professor of American history at Tufts University and the author of “Sisters in Law: Women Lawyers in Modern American History.”
Robinson’s query was not a frivolous matter of fashion. Rather, it was a serious concern to every 19th century woman who prepared to enter the courtroom to practice law. Social etiquette demanded that respectable women appear in public wearing hats, but professional etiquette required lawyers to remove them when they entered the courtroom. Robinson’s question about her hat transcended matters of fashion, shedding light on a dilemma that continued long after women broke the institutional barriers to the legal profession: How to balance gender with professional identity?
In an era that emphasized the virtues of gender difference, the woman lawyer of the late 19th century straddled two worlds. As a woman, her place was at home, the caretaker of domestic and family concerns. As a lawyer, her place was in the office and the courtroom, the protector of justice and freedom. As a woman, she was expected to be modest, sentimental and caring. As a lawyer, she needed to be assertive, rational and objective. At every turn, a woman lawyer had to balance these competing identities.
When she entered the courtroom, for example, a woman attorney had to wear an outfit that conveyed at once seriousness and softness, objectivity and sentimentality, professionalism and femininity. To achieve this balance, women lawyers typically wore a plain black outfit, accented by jewelry or lace. The simplicity and dark colors mirrored the suits of men, alluding to professional identification with male colleagues. The extra adornments telegraphed that women lawyers were still ladies. Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States (in 1879), wore a gold brooch in the shape of a scissors and thimble. Clara Foltz, a pioneering woman lawyer in California, also wore a gold brooch, as well as golden butterflies attached to bands of black velvet at her wrists.
Nineteenth-century women lawyers agreed on the appropriate attire for the courtroom — except when it involved the matter of the hat. Many concurred with Robinson, who preferred to keep her hat on. “It is surely no mark of disrespect to the court for a woman to appear at the bar in her bonnet, which it is customary for her to wear in church,” Robinson insisted in 1888.
But others, like Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Rockford, Ill., disagreed. “Some seem to think that a bonnet is absolutely necessary on a woman’s head to redeem her from the curse deserved for lifting up her voice on the rostrum ... I object on principle.” Still others, like Letitia Burlingame of Joliet, Ill., rejected both sides of the argument, professing instead a woman lawyer’s right to wear a hat in court “if she prefers.”
With such diverse opinions remaining until the end of the 19th century, it was up to a younger generation of women lawyers in the 20th century to ultimately resolve the hat debate. By 1920, women lawyers had overwhelmingly given up the hat as a vestige of the Victorian ladydom of their mothers and grandmothers, agreeing with an article in the Women Lawyers Journal that declared that the hat should “be tabooed” in the courtroom. In this era — when 27 of 129 law schools admitted women, every state bar was open to women, and the suffrage amendment made them full and equal citizens — younger women adopted a new code of fashion in the courtroom that embraced the promise of gender equality.
This new dress code embodied more than a rejection of the hat. In their quest for a gender-neutral standard of attire, women lawyers urged all lawyers, men and women, to wear a robe in court. This was not an original idea. Former President William Howard Taft had already called for the robe, believing it would give all lawyers more professional respect. But feminist lawyers saw additional virtues in the robe and embraced it as a symbol of gender equality that would erase “sex consciousness” in the courtroom.
Still, amid calls for gender equality, individual women lawyers continued to find personal ways to convey their femininity in court. Some wore pearls; others strategically placed their purse, handkerchief or gloves in view of the judge and jury. But very few wore a hat, the 19th century remnant of female respectability and gender difference.
While the issue of the hat was resolved by the 1920s, questions about what constituted an appropriate dress-for-success outfit for the professional woman lingered. In the last quarter of the century, as the second wave of feminism waxed and waned, women first adopted tailored skirt suits with ties, then pantsuits to emulate men’s attire, as the clothing industry sought to meet the needs of the growing population of professional women.
More recently, a younger generation has adopted shorter, fitted skirts, in the name of gender equality. On the political stage, Hillary Clinton’s tailored pantsuits and Sarah Palin’s short skirts reveal the spectrum of contemporary professional women’s attire, while also illuminating a strong link to women lawyers of the past.
But perhaps 19th-century lawyer Margaret Wilcox of Milwaukee spoke for women of all eras, foreshadowing the diversity of outfits and colors worn by today’s female lawyers. Harking back to the natural rights language of the 18th century, she declared, “It is the inalienable right of each lady [lawyer] to follow her ‘own sweet will.’ ”
Virginia G. Drachman is the Arthur and Lenore Stern professor of American history at Tufts University and the author of “Sisters in Law: Women Lawyers in Modern American History.”
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