Belva Lockwood (1830–1917)

Belva Lockwood, née Bennett, was born to a farm family in Royalton, New York. She attended local schools until she was 15 and then became a teacher. In 1848, she married Uriah H. McNall, with whom she had a daughter, and was widowed five years later at age 22. She learned early how important it was for women to be financially independent. She resumed teaching and continued her own education, graduating from Genesee College (forerunner of Syracuse University) in 1857. She continued working as a teacher in upper New York state until 1866, when she moved to Washington, D.C. There she opened a coeducational private school and later a boarding house. In 1868, she married Ezekiel Lockwood, a much older former dentist who actively supported her suffrage and career activities. Seeing the law as the most effective means of advancing the struggle for women's rights, Mrs. Lockwood enrolled at National University Law School (now George Washington University). She earned her law degree in 1873 and was admitted to the District of Columbia bar the same year. She represented dozens of clients in her own law practice and championed many causes she believed in. Against bitter opposition, she became the first woman to won the right to argue cases before the Supreme Court. She gained national prominence on lecture tours on women’s rights and was active in various suffrage organizations. In 1884 and 1888, Mrs. Lockwood ran for the Presidency of the USA as the Equal Rights Party candidate. She was also a peace activist and attended several international peace conferences between 1889 and 1911. She drafted a bill for equal pay for work by women in government that was enacted into law in 1872, and took a prominent part in the campaign to win equal property rights and equal guardianship of children for married women in the District of Columbia. In 1903, when the statehood bills for Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona came before Congress, she wrote the amendments granting suffrage to women in the proposed new states.