Florence E. Allen

Florence E. Allen (1884-1966) was nicknamed “first lady of the law” for her many firsts as a woman in the legal profession. After graduating from Western Reserve College for Women, she taught at Laurel School from 1906 to 1909. She then became a crusader for women’s rights, and in 1913 received a law degree from New York University. Allen was appointed as an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor in 1919, the first woman in the country to hold such a position. In 1920, she was elected to Cleveland’s Court of Common Pleas, advancing, in 1922, to the Ohio Supreme Court, where she served two terms. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Allen to the nation’s second highest tribunal, the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, where she became its first female member. In 1958, she was elevated to Chief Justice of that body and retired in 1965.

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