Florence Ellinwood Allen

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Florence Ellinwood Allen (March 23, 1884 – September 12, 1966) was a United States Circuit Judge on the Sixth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals.

She was the first woman to serve on a state supreme court and one of the first two women to serve as a United States federal judge.

She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2005.

Early life and education

Allen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the granddaughter of Clarence Emir Allen Sr., a mine manager and later Utah States Representative, Corinne Marie Tuckerman. She was one of seven children—five girls, one of whom died in infanthood and two boys. Her father was a scholar and a linguist, and the family was relocated to Cleveland, Ohio, where he was recruited by what was then called the Western Reserve University and is now called Case Western Reserve University. Young Florence grew up in Cleveland, where her father shared his love of languages with her, teaching her Greek and Latin until she was a teenager. She also showed a love of poetry early on, as well as a natural singer, and after attending New Lyme Institute in Ashtabula, Ohio, she decided to enroll Western Reserve, with music as her major. Allen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1904 and her father followed her to Berlin, Germany, to continue her musical studies. When she was there, she served as a reporter for the Musical Courier, a New York newspaper. She had intended to become a concert pianist, but she was forced to cancel her performing career due to a wrist injury. She returned to Ohio in 1906 and took up a job as the music critic for The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), a newspaper that she held until 1909. By this time, she had begun showing an increasing interest in politics and law, which led her to a Master of Arts degree in political science from Western Reserve; she finished it in 1908. She also took courses in constitutional law and would have obtained a diploma, but the law school in Western Reserve didn't accept women at the time. Allen took extra classes and tutorials in order to advance to a law career, and he became more determined to have a career. She attended the University of Chicago's law school for a year and then transferred to New York University School of Law. She began working as a professional investigator and researcher for the New York League for the Protection of Immigrants in order to pay her tuition. She earned her Bachelor of Laws in 1913, graduating with distinction. In 1914, she returned to Cleveland and was admitted to the Ohio bar for the first time.

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Legal career

She was not a success at first by her own admission. During her first month, she made about $25, and all she could afford for her office was two chairs and a borrowed typewriter. "I had no clients," she told a reporter in a 1934 interview. And I had no money. "I had a rosy forecast," the author says. However, she realized that to be fruitful, she needed some expertise, so she did volunteer with the local Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, where she not only learned about the subject but became involved in a critical case regarding suffrage. Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw, both as children, brought her mother to see legendary suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw speak out about women's rights. And the argument that women should be treated as equals under the legislation was unquestionably connected with her as a result of her attempts to be taken seriously as an attorney. She became more involved in politics and more committed to the cause of women's suffrage. She was active in the Women's Suffrage Party and started a campaign against local laws that restricted women's involvement in the political process. She argued in one particular case that made it to the Ohio Supreme Court: she won the women of East Cleveland the right to vote in municipal elections thanks to her efforts. During this period, she became involved in another cause that would be important to her whole life: disarmament and the search for world peace. This was personal for Allen: both of her brothers died while serving their country during the First World War.

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