Mary Belle Grossman (10 June 1879 – 27 January 1977) was an American
suffragist
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
,
attorney, and
judge, was born in
Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of
Louis Grossman, the proprietor of a meat and hardware business, and Fannie Engle.
Grossman attended Cleveland public schools and graduated from the old Central High School and from the Euclid Avenue Business College. She worked in the law office of a cousin, Louis J. Grossman, from 1896 to 1912. She decided that a career as a
lawyer was preferable to that of a stenographer and bookkeeper and enrolled in 1909 in the evening program of Cleveland Law School (now a part of Cleveland State University), the first law school in Ohio to accept women. She was awarded her
LL.B.
Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...
in 1912 and passed the Ohio bar examination that same year. After practicing law in her cousin’s office for two years, she established her own law office and engaged in the solo practice of law through 1923.
Abstract
Mary Belle Grossman was the first female lawyer to practice in
Cleveland District Federal Court, and one of the first two women admitted to the American Bar Association. In 1923 she was elected Cleveland Municipal Judge and served on the traffic bench and the Morals Court until 1960. The collection consists of scrapbooks and newspaper clipping books relating to Judge Grossman's career and election campaigns.
References
1879 births
1977 deaths
American suffragists
American women judges
People from Cleveland
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