NOTES on Bradwell v. State of Illinois The Play
Myra Bradwell . It’s not a name that as many people as should know, do recognise.
When many of us read her case in school, whether as undergraduate or law student, or both, she was portrayed as a pioneering woman, in the field of women’s rights in the 19 th Century. She was the first woman to appeal a case to the U.S. Supreme Court, because her State of Illinois’ highest court denied her a license to practice Law, solely based on her gender/sex.
But she was so much more than a women’s rights leader. She built a legal publishing empire. For twenty-five years, until her untimely death to cancer in 1894, she edited and published a weekly newspaper, The Chicago Legal News , which appropriately, though ironically, became necessary reading, first, for her male colleagues in the Legal Profession in Illinois, and, then, for lawyers across the country. And from the editorial pages of her newspaper, she advocated for women’s rights across the spectrum of 19 th Century U.S. life.
After the Illinois Supreme Court denied her application for a Law license, she and Alta
M. Hulett drafted a statute, and, with the aid of her lifelong soul-mate and spouse, James
Bradwell, had the Illinois Legislature pass it, removing sex/gender, as obstacles to obtaining a license to practice Law. Indeed, after the statute was passed, her friends and supporters urged her to reapply, rather than to pursue the U.S. Supreme Court case on which this play is based. But
Myra had a larger vision. By receiving a favourable decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, she and other women’s rights advocates would not have to have a statute passed in every State, as Illinois and Iowa had done.
She lost the battle in 1873, but, as we know, in the long-term, she won the war, though the struggle for women’s rights is far from over.
The play opens in the early 1850s, with Myra and James running off to elope, due to her family’s opposition to James, as a potential spouse. The couple studied Law together, James being very supportive of Myra’s ambitions, they prospered, and they came to know some of the more influential legal and political figures in Illinois during that decade. In fact, as the play shows, they knew Mary and Abraham Lincoln quite well. As an aside, Myra and James led a successful campaign in 1875, to have Mary released from the insane asylum, where her son had
“railroaded” her. As Myra once reflected, “That woman is no more insane than I am!”
Bradwell v. State of Illinois traces the events from Myra and James’ wedding through the turbulent 1850s and the Civil War (during which she led groups that aided Union wounded and the families of Union war dead) and culminates with the U.S. Supreme Court case. On this journey, the reader and audience are introduced to some of the more colourful and important figures in U.S. Political and Legal/Judicial life in the mid-19 th Century. The play is a tribute to a visionary woman, with the courage and stamina, to fight for women’s rights, to whom we all owe a great debt of thanks and respect.
Enjoy the play! Please!