Cook County IL Archives Biographies.....Bradwell, Myra Colby 1831 - 1894
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Deb Haines http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000719 August 9, 2008, 9:49 am

Author: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary

BRADWELL, Myra (Colby), lawyer, was born in Manchester, Vt., Feb. 12, 1831, 
daughter of Eben and Abigail (Willey) Colby. Her childhood was passed in 
Western New York, whence, in 1843, her parents removed to Schaumburg, a town 
near Chicago. Her education was acquired at a seminary in Elgin, where she 
later became an instructor, afterward teaching in Cook, Kane, and Lake 
counties, Illinois, and in private and public schools in Memphis, Tenn. In 
1852 she was married to James B. Bradwell, a Chicago lawyer, and studied law 
under the instruction of her husband. In 1858 she was refused admission to the 
bar, on the ground of her being a woman. The case was carried to the supreme 
court of the United States with the same result. Twenty years later she 
received, without renewed request, a license to practise in Illinois. In 1868 
she began the publication of the Chicago Legal News, which she continued to 
conduct, up to the time of her death. Mrs. Bradwell was actively interested in 
philanthropic work, being one of the founders of the Illinois industrial 
school for girls, and devoting much time to private charities. She was a 
member of the womans branch of the Illinois centennial association, vice-
president of the first woman suffrage convention in Chicago, a member of the 
board of lady managers of the Worlds Columbian exposition at Chicago in 1893, 
and chairman of the committee on law reform of its auxiliary congress. She was 
the first woman member of the Illinois state bar association, and the first 
woman in the United States to apply for admission to the bar. In 1894 the 
Chicago board of education named one of its public schools the Myra Bradwell 
school in her honor, the dedicatory exercises being held June 27, 1895. She 
died in Chicago, Ill., Feb. 14, 1894.

Additional Comments:
Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans.
Vol. I-X. Rossiter Johnson, editor. Boston MA: The Biographical Society. 1904.

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