Florence Ellinwood Allen

Florence Ellinwood Allen. A Journey to Justice. , Defying Expectations: 1914-1930s , Allen returned from New York to Cleveland and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1914. She established her own law practice, which was very uncommon for women in the field during this time, and also took cases for the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. Career opportunities in the legal field in the early twentieth century were often abundant for men, but women tended to be denied the opportunity to practice on a basis of sex. Allen worked especially hard to challenge discrimination against women, in the legal field but also in society as a whole., She became a respected figure in the northeast Ohio community for her work in legal cases, and was appointed Assistant Prosecutor of Cuyahoga County in 1919. The following year she was elected a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and won a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court in 1922. Not only was this a first for women of Ohio, but she was the first woman to serve on the supreme court of any state in the country., Allen continued to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court until 1934, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her to the Sixth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals., Finding Her Footing: 1880s - 1910s , Florence Ellinwood Allen was born in 1884 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Corinne Marie Tuckerman Allen and Clarence Emir Allen, a former professor of Latin and Greek at Western Reserve College (the first college of northern Ohio founded in 1826). Their families were early settlers of Ashtabula County, Ohio., By the young age of seven, her father had taught her Latin and Greek, and she pursued an interest in music and classics. Allen obtained a formal education at the New Lyme Institute (later Deming High School) in Ashtabula County, where she dreamed of becoming a classical pianist. After graduating from Western Reserve University with honors in 1904, she traveled to Germany to further her music studies. Unfortunately, a debilitating nerve injury in her arm prevented her from continuing a career in music, and she returned to the U.S. in 1906., Allen went on to utilize her musical knowledge as a music critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer while also pursuing a graduate degree in political science and constitutional law at Western Reserve. Obtaining this degree two years later, she moved to New York City to work for the New York League for the Protection of Immigrants, and earned her degree from New York University School of Law in 1913., Allen set a precedent for women in law as the first woman to serve as a judge in a federal court, yet still experienced issues with discrimination based on sex; when an opening appeared in the United States Supreme Court, she was denied the opportunity to serve due to objections from the other eight male justices. It would not be until 1981 that a woman serve as a justice of the Supreme Court, when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan., Justice For Women: 1910s - 1960s , Allen not only advocated for women's representation in the legal field, but also in political affairs. She was a member of the National Association of Business and Professional Women and the National Association of Women Lawyers, and often spoke at conventions, conferences, and to civic organizations and women's clubs., Early in her law practice, Allen got involved in important suffrage cases; she was inspired by leaders such as Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw, attending their lectures as a young girl. She was active in the Woman's Suffrage Party, challenging laws that limited women's participation in the political process. She argued one popular case that went all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, and won the women of East Cleveland the right to vote in municipal elections in 1916., In 1947, she was asked by the American Academy of Political and Social Science to do a study of women's voting patterns to assess whether they were active in the political process after securing the long, sought-after right in 1920. After her research, Allen expressed that while many women were in fact voting, a shift was taking place in which the dynamic leaders who had fought for equal suffrage and participation for women in public life were deceased, and not yet replaced by a new generation of activists., She authored several books throughout her lifetime, including a book of poetry and her memoirs, To Do Justly (1965). Allen challenged the traditional narrative and assumptions about women's roles in society, and served as an advocate and role model for women in pursuit of legal careers and political rights.