Iowan Belle Mansfield was the first woman to be qualified to practice law in the U.S.

Arabella 'Belle” Babb Mansfield, the first woman admitted to practice law in the United States, was born on a farm near Burlington in 1846. When she grew up, she graduated as valedictorian from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1866.

She taught at Simpson College for a year, then returned to Iowa Wesleyan to teach and to study law.

She married John Mansfield, an Iowa Wesleyan professor of science, who was also studying law, in 1868.

She and John were admitted to the Iowa bar together in 1869, an expected event for John, but not for Belle. She had to sue to gain admission to the bar, which previously had been limited to men over the age of 21.

The bar committee that examined her said, 'Mrs. Mansfield has passed a most eminently satisfactory examination, giving the very best evidence of a long and careful study, of excellent application, and a thorough acquaintance with the elementary principles of law.”

Arabella was 24 at the time, and her achievement was reported nationwide in newspapers that carried the headline 'Petticoats at the Bar” - a reference to a woman's underskirt in the 19th century.

Surprisingly, Arabella never practiced law. Instead she and John went to Europe, returning to Mount Pleasant in 1871 to teach at Iowa Wesleyan and later at Asbury University in Greencastle, Ind., which later became DePauw University.

Arabella served DePauw as the dean of the Schools of Music and Art.

Ten years after Belle was admitted to the bar, women were permitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. In that decade the number of women lawyers increased from one to 75.

Today, there are more than 400,000 women lawyers in the U.S.

After she took a trip to Japan in 1909, Belle became sick. She was 64 when she died on Aug. 1, 1911. She is buried in Mount Pleasant.

Comments: diane.langton@thegazette.com