Catherine Waugh McCulloch

Catherine Gouger Waugh McCulloch (June 4, 1862-April 20, 1945) was an American lawyer and noted suffragist. June 4 is the 155th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (156th in leap years), with 210 days remaining. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... April 20 is the 110th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (111th in leap years). ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Suffragette with banner, Washington DC, 1918 The title of suffragette was given to members of the womens suffrage movement in the United Kingdom and United States, particularly in the years prior to World War I. The name was the Womens Social and Political Union (founded in 1903). ...

She was a pioneer for American women in the legal profession. She was active in campaigning for women's suffrage and legislation granting equal rights to women. She also served as legal advisor (1904-1911) and vice-president (1910-1911) of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Suffrage parade, New York City, 1912 The movement for womens suffrage, led by suffragists (peaceful protestors) and suffragettes (violent protestors), was a social, economic and political reform movement aimed at extending the suffrage (the right to vote) to women, advocating equal suffrage (abolition of graded votes) rather than universal... The Equal Rights Party was a Canadian political party that nominated two candidates in the 5 March 1891 federal election. ... The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), an American womens rights organization, was established by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in May of 1869. ...

Life

In November of 1886 she was the 18th woman to be admitted to the bar in Illinois, and later the first woman to be elected a Justice of the Peace in Illinois. She drafted and successfully lobbied for the passage of a law in 1901 that gave women equal guardianship with their husbands over their children, and in 1905 to raise the age of consent for girls from 14 to 16 years. A bar association is a professional body of lawyers who, in some jurisdictions, are responsible for the regulation of the legal profession. ... A Justice of the Peace (JP) is someone appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. ... Worldwide age of consent laws. ...

With Esther Dunshee Bower she fought for the Illinois Women's Jury Bill, finally signed into law in 1939. She was the legal adviser for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (which became the League of Women Voters in 1920 after passage of the 19th Amendment) and was its first vice president. A jury is a sworn body of persons convened to render a rational, impartial verdict and a finding of fact on a legal question officially submitted to them, or to set a penalty or judgment in a jury trial of a court of law. ... The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), an American womens rights organization, was established by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in May of 1869. ... The League of Women Voters is a United States non-partisan political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during a meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. ... Amendment XIX (the Nineteenth Amendment) to the United States Constitution (sometimes called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment) grants voting rights regardless of the voters sex: The amendment prohibits both the federal government and the states from using a persons sex as a qualification to vote; it was specifically...

May 30, 1890 she married one of her law school classmates, Frank McCulloch, and they formed the law firm of McCulloch & McCulloch. In 1929 they jointly authored and published A Manual of the Law of Will Contests in Illinois.

Publications

All available through the Harvard University Library Open Collections Program, a fully searchable online database.

• Bittenbender, Ada M. "Women in Law," in Farmer, Lydia Hoyt. The national exposition souvenir: what America owes to women Buffalo: C.W. Moulton, 1893. Pages 390-408.

• Drysdale, William. "The Woman Lawyer," in Helps for ambitious girls New York: T.Y. Crowell & Co., c1900. Pages 180-208.

• "Law," in Training for the professions and allied occupations: facilities available to women in the United States. New York: Bureau of Vocational Information, 1924. Pages 427-450.

• McCulloch, Catharine Waugh. "Women as Law Clerks" manuscript. c1887. (12 pages).

• Bureau of Vocational Information (New York, N.Y.). Records, 1908-1932: A Finding Aid

External links

• Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. Women Working, 1870-1930, Catharine Gouger Waugh McCulloch (1862-1945). A full-text searchable online database with complete access to publications written by Catharine McCulloch.