Alice Rufie Jordan Blake (10 October 1864 - 29 November 1893) was the first female graduate of

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. After application and rejection from several other schools, she was able to enter Yale's law program after discovering that school regulations did not explicitly forbid female applicants.

Early life

Alice Rufie Jordan was born in Norwalk, Ohio. After graduation from high school at the age of sixteen, she became the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

's youngest entrant to the literature program. At the age of 20, she entered the University of Michigan Law School, and before graduation passed the court test (an early type of bar exam) that enabled her to practice law in the state of

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

Time at Yale

Wanting to continue her studies, Jordan applied to Columbia Law School and

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

in 1885. After rejection from both male-only schools, she applied to Yale using her first initials. When she arrived to register, she faced opposition from the

Corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

, but because the regulations did not explicitly prohibit female applicants, she was permitted to proceed with her studies. A year later, Blake graduated with a bachelor's of law in 1886 with the support of the faculty. While Blake was the first female graduate at Yale, she would remain as the only female law graduate until 1920. At the meeting with the Corporation where they approved the list of new law graduates, they noted that "it is to be understood that the courses of instruction hroughout Yaleare open to persons of the male sex only, except where both sexes are specifically included.”

Marriage and death

Jordan married fellow lawyer George D. Blake in 1888, and moved to Seattle, Washington. She had been interviewed stating her desire to practice law even after her marriage. Jordan Blake died at the age of 29 in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in 1893.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blake, Alice Rufie Jordan 1864 births 1893 deaths Yale Law School alumni Michigan lawyers University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni People from Norwalk, Ohio University of Michigan Law School alumni 19th-century American lawyers 19th-century American women lawyers Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century