Marion Janet Harron (September 3, 1903 – September 26, 1972) was an American lawyer and

United States Tax Court The United States Tax Court (in case citations, T.C.) is a federal trial court of record established by Congress under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, section 8 of which provides (in part) that the Congress has the power to "constitute Trib ...

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

from 1936 to 1970. She is also known for her five-year affair with

Lorena Hickok Lorena Alice "Hick" Hickok (March 7, 1893 – May 1, 1968) was a pioneering American journalist and devoted friend and mentor to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. After an unhappy and unsettled childhood, Hickok found success as a reporter for the ...

. Harron was a frequent visitor at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

during the 1940s.

Early life and education

Harron was born in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, the daughter of George Olcott Brown, a jeweler, and Mary Jane (Minnie) Little Brown. Her parents divorced in 1904. Her stepfather Howard Harron was a lawyer; the Harrons divorced in 1916. She graduated from

Girls High School Girls High School is a historically and architecturally notable public secondary school building located at 475 Nostrand Avenue in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. It was built in 1886.''Brooklyn: a soup-to-nuts g ...

in San Francisco in 1920. She earned a bachelor's degree at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

in 1924, and completed a law degree at Berkeley's

Boalt Hall The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of ...

in 1926, with a thesis on the opinions of

Louis Brandeis Louis Dembitz Brandeis (; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. Starting in 1890, he helped develop the "right to privacy" concept ...

. She was a member of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

and

Delta Sigma Rho Delta Sigma Rho- Tau Kappa Alpha () is a collegiate honor society devoted to the promotion of public speaking (forensics). History Both Delta Sigma Rho and Tau Kappa Alpha were founded as honorary forensic societies. Delta Sigma Rho Delta Sigm ...

Career

During law school in the 1920s, Harron was a teaching fellow in the economics department at the University of California, and was on the staff of the California Industrial Welfare Commission. She passed the California bar in 1926. She joined the Law Research Institute at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in 1928, and co-edited the institute's ''Current research in law for the academic year 1928-1929'' with legal scholar

Herman Oliphant Herman Enzla Oliphant was an American legal scholar and professor at the University of Chicago Law School and Columbia Law School. He is considered to be a leading figure of the legal realism movement in the United States. Early life and educati ...

. Harron specialized in corporate law and trusts, working on cases involving bank liquidations and real estate in New York City, from 1929 to 1933. She was assistant counsel with the

National Recovery Administration The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate "cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and governmen ...

from 1933 to 1935, and with the

Resettlement Administration The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm Se ...

from 1935 to 1936. In 1936 Harron was the second woman appointed to the United States Board of Tax Appeals, succeeding

Annabel Matthews Annabel Matthews (December 31, 1883 – March 24, 1960) was the first woman to serve as a judge of the United States Board of Tax Appeals, having been appointed to that office by President Herbert Hoover in 1930. Early life, and education, and ca ...

. In 1940 she was named one of the "Ten Most Accomplished Women in the United States Born Since 1900", alongside

Clare Booth Luce Clare Boothe Luce ( Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987) was an American writer, politician, U.S. ambassador, and public conservative figure. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play '' The Women'', which h ...

Helen Hayes Helen Hayes MacArthur ( Brown; October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was an American actress whose career spanned 80 years. She eventually received the nickname "First Lady of American Theatre" and was the second person and first woman to have w ...

Marian Anderson Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897April 8, 1993) was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to Spiritual (music), spirituals. Anderson performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues throu ...

, and

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh (June 22, 1906 – February 7, 2001) was an American writer and aviator. She was the wife of decorated pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, with whom she made many exploratory flights. Raised in Englewood, New Jers ...

. "Most women are taxpayers, and there's no reason why women lawyers should not specialize in taxation," she said in 1941. She was mentioned as a candidate for a federal judge post in San Francisco in 1939. After a 1949 Senate confirmation hearing she was reappointed as a judge of the Tax Court of the United States, though there were questions about her judicial temperament and "reputation for dictatorial, arbitrary, and capricious action upon the bench". One of her last rulings was against

Doris Day Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, " Sent ...

, when she found the actress liable for over $400,000 in back taxes in 1970. Harron work involved national travel, hearing tax cases in various cities, which gave her opportunities to speak to women's organizations, including the

National Association of Women Lawyers The National Association of Women Lawyers is a voluntary organization founded in 1899 and based in the United States. Its aim is to promote women lawyers and women's legal rights.

. She spoke at the 1949 Seneca Falls Day event of the

National Woman's Party The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NW ...

Personal life

Harron had a five-year affair with journalist Lorena Hickok, ending in 1945. Harron died in 1972. A memorial service was held in the Bethlehem Chapel of the

Washington National Cathedral The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, commonly known as Washington National Cathedral, is an American cathedral of the Episcopal Church. The cathedral is located in Washington, D.C., the cap ...

References

External links

Inclusion in Women of Achievement and History Website
* Dan Ernst (May 25, 2012)

''Legal History Blog''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Harron, Marion Janet 1903 births 1972 deaths Judges of the United States Tax Court United States Article I federal judges appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt United States Article I federal judges appointed by Harry S. Truman 20th-century American judges Members of the United States Board of Tax Appeals University of California, Berkeley alumni 20th-century American women judges