Running for Change
Of the many visitors who have come to Richmond over the years,
certainly one of the most interesting was Belva Lockwood. Widowed at 24
with a young daughter, Lockwood was employed as a school teacher in her
home town of Royalton, New York, with a salary of $3 a week.
When she complained to superiors that men teachers were making twice
that salary, she received no satisfaction. After the Civil War, she
packed her bags and moved to Washington, D.C.
In 1871 Lockwood was admitted to the University Law School, later part
of George Washington University. She passed the courses, but as a woman
she could not get a diploma. She appealed to President Ulysses Grant,
who was an ex-officio president of the school, and with his approval, in
1873, was admitted to the Washington bar.
In 1876 she was refused admission to the U.S. Supreme Court. She lobbied
Congress and convinced enough members to support her cause. On February
15, 1879, President Hayes signed a bill making her the first woman to be
allowed to argue before the Court.
Lockwood was an ardent suffragist and in 1884 ran for president as a
candidate of the National Equal Rights Party. She received less than
one-tenth of one percent of the vote—about 4,000 votes in six states.
She ran again in 1888, but received even fewer votes.
In 1894 she boarded a train and headed for Richmond. She had discovered
that in Virginia there were no women lawyers. Here in the capital city
in May, 1894, she applied for a license. She was promptly refused.
A letter to the editor of the Dispatch expressed the opinion of many at
that time: “We are still old-fashioned enough to believe that neither
nature nor law ever intended that women should be lawyers.”
Lockwood took her case to the Virginia Court of Appeals. The New York
Times on June 16, 1894, in a front page article said: “A few weeks ago
the Court of Appeals, by a vote of 2-2, one member being absent, decided
against Mrs. Lockwood’s petition. Upon a re-hearing granted yesterday,
the Court sitting in Wytheville today, revoked its former decision and
decided in favor of Mrs. Lockwood.”
On October 3, 1894 she applied to Judge Wellford, who was sitting in
Richmond in the Circuit Court of Henrico, and her license was issued.
Belva Lockwood did not have many cases in Virginia, but as a result of
her trip to Richmond, she made her point.
Ray Schreiner is a volunteer at the Valentine
Richmond History Center and the Virginia Historical Society, and is an
avid reader of old newspapers.
