U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for March 15

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

COURT APPEARANCE

Profile America — Sunday, March 15th.  This date in 1879 was a milestone in women's history and the opportunities available to them. President Rutherford Hayes signed a congressional act "to relieve certain legal disabilities of women." With this bill, its champion, 49-year-old Belva A. Lockwood, became the first woman to be admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, which she did the following year. Lockwood followed this advance in 1884 by becoming the first woman to mount a serious candidacy for the presidency. Lockwood was one of about 200 women lawyers in 1880, out of more than 64,000 in the nation. Today in the U.S., there are nearly 1.1 million lawyers, judges, judicial law clerks and other judicial workers, with more than 36 percent of them women. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 4638
Belva Lockwood biography: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/spring/belva-lockwood-1.html 
1880 women: http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.barredbar.3.htm 
1880 total: http://www.michbar.org/journal/article.cfm?articleID=99&volumeID=9 
Lawyers, judges and law clerks/workers: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_1YR_B24010&prodType=table

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

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