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“An Embarrassingly and Severely Masculine Atmosphere”: Women, Gender and the Legal Profession at Osgoode Hall, 1920s–1960s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Cecilia Morgan
Cecilia Morgan
Affiliation:
Department of History, Queen's University
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Abstract

This paper examines gender relations within Ontario's Osgoode Hall Law School from the 1920s to the 1960s, focussing on the women who entered the school during this period. It analyzes their backgrounds and motives for entering law school and it also examines their experiences at the school and as articling students. This paper argues that the legal profession's insistence on its masculine nature shaped women law students' attempts to construct their own professional identities and to reconcile their professionalism with their gender, ethnic and racial, and class backgrounds (the majority of these women were Anglo-Celtic and middle-class). Yet while masculinity was the norm for both the profession and the law school, it was not a static, monolithic construct; it was constructed and expressed in a number of ways by male students and instructors at Osgoode Hall, particularly in the pages of the student press and through the activities of O s goode's student organization. Such struggles to define male law students' identities invariably affected women law students; in turn, through the Women's Law Association of Ontario, they worked to create an alternative space where women lawyers and students could work for change and attempt to reconcile professionalism and middle-class femininity.

Résumé

Dans cet article, l'auteure étudie l'évolution des rapports entre les sexes à la faculté de droit de Osgoode Hall et, plus particulièrement, l'évolution de la situation des femmes y ayant été admises entre les années vingt et les années soixante. Elle y analyse le milieu socioculturel de ces femmes, les motifs les ayant conduites à choisir le droit et y relate leurs expériences à titre d'étudiantes et de stagiaires. L'auteure soutient que l'accent mis sur la nature masculine de la profession est à l'orìgine de l'effort constant déployé par les étudiantes en droit—dont la majorité étaient d'origine anglo-celtique et issues de la classe moyenne—afin de définir leur credo professionnel propre et faire l'adéquation de leur profession et leur identité sexuelle, ethnique, raciale et socioculturelle. Néanmoins, la prééminence des hommes dans la profession et à la faculté—un état d'esprit tout autant qu'un état de fait—était prônée par les étudiants et les professeurs de Osgoode Hall de diverses façons, s'exprimant notamment dans les pages du journal étudiant et véhiculée dans les activités organisées par les étudiants. Les étudiantes devaient invariablement subir les conséquences des efforts de leurs collègues masculins en vue d'affermir leur identité. En fondant la Women's Law Association of Ontario, elles ont créé un lieu d'échanges ou avocates et étudiantes peuvent envisager des changements et trouver des solutions leur permettant de concilier leur profession, leur féminité et leur origine socioculturelle.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Fall/automne 1996 , pp. 19 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1996

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References

1. The [Toronto] Globe (2 February 1897).

2. For literature on women and the legal profession in Canada, see Harvey, Cameron, “Women in Law in Canada” (1970) 4:1Man. L.J. 9Google Scholar; Kinnear, Mary, “That There Woman Lawyer: Women Lawyers in Manitoba 1915–1970” (1992) 5:2C.J.W.L. 411.Google Scholar Some work on the profession in Ontario has considered the links between lawyers and business. See Wilton, Carol, ed., Essays in the History of Canadian Law, vol. 4 (Toronto: Osgoode Society, 1990)Google Scholar; Willie, Richard A., “A Proper Ideal During Action: Fraternity, Leadership and Lifestyle in Winnipeg Lawyers' Professional Culture, 1878–1900” (1992) 27 Journal of Canadian Studies 58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Smith, James A., “Artificial Conscience: Professional Elites and Professional Discipline from 1920–1950” (1994) 32:1Osgoode Hall Law Journal 65.Google Scholar For a recent examination of equity within the legal profession, see the Canadian Bar Association's Task Force Report, Touchstones for Change: Equality, Diversity and Accountability (Ottawa: Canadian Bar Association, 1993)Google Scholar; also, Gender Quality in the Justice System: A Report of the Law Society of British Columbia Gender Bias Committee (Vancouver: Law Society of British Columbia, 1992).

3. Constance Backhouse, ed., “Lawyering: Clara Brett Martin, Canada's First Woman Lawyer” in Constance Backhouse, Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada (Toronto: Women's Press, 1991)Google Scholar [hereinafter Petticoats and Prejudice]; Roth, Theresa, “Clara Brett Martin—Canada's Pioneer Woman Lawyer” (1984) 18 L. Soc. Gaz. 323Google Scholar; Anderson, Alexandra, “The First Woman Lawyer in Canada: Clara Brett Martin,” (1980) 2:4Canadian Woman Studies 9.Google Scholar

4. I would argue that some of the earlier evaluations of Martin's career were tinged with this approach, although in light of revelations of her anti-Semitism, historians have attempted to look at her career in a more nuanced manner. For such discussion, see Backhouse, ibid. at 3–5, 323–24; also the exchanges between Backhouse, Betcherman, Lita-Rose, Cossman, Brenda, Kline, Mariée, and Pearlman, Lynne in (1992) 5:2C.J.W.L. 263.Google Scholar

5. One of the most recent and prominent attempts to reshape professional culture was Touchstones for Change (commonly known as the “Bertha Wilson report”), released in August 1993, that examined gender equality within the legal profession and made 200 recommendations aimed at improving conditions for women lawyers and law students.

6. For discussions of Osgoode Hall and 20th-century legal education, see Kyer, Ian C. & Bickenbach, Jerome E., The Fiercest Debate: Cecil A. Wright, the Benchers, and Legal Education in Ontario 1923–1957 (Toronto: Osgoode Society, 1987)Google Scholar; Cole, Curtis, “In the Eye of the Storm: A History of Osgoode Hall Law School, 1889–1989” (1991) [unpublished manuscript]Google Scholar; Lederman, W. R., “Canadian Legal Education in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century” (1971) 21 U.T.L.J. 141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Kyer & Bickenbach, ibid. at 121–36, 197–221.

8. In 1910, Davis became the first black King's Counsel in the British Empire. Backhouse, supra note 3 at 300, 427. The numbers of black male lawyers remained small throughout the 20th century; in the 1940s and 1950s, there were only five in Ontario. See Talbot, Lance C., “History of Blacks in the Law Society of Upper Canada” (1990) 24:1L. Soc. Gaz. 65Google Scholar; also Bickenbach, Jerome E., “Lawyers, Law Professors, and Racism in Ontario” (1989) 96:3Queen's Quarterly 585.Google Scholar

9. Backhouse, ibid. at 294, 302–04, 308–09, 319, 321.

10. Ibid. at 331.

11. Ibid. at 337. Possibly Martin's case had a more immediate impact on other women's aspirations than has been previously believed for, in 1893, the year of Martin's admission, Powley contacted the Law Society and asked the Secretary of the Legal Education Committee if she might be admitted “under the Rules relating to the admission of women to practise as solicitors.” Her admission was delayed due to administrative and financial problems. Exactly how Powley obtained admission to the school is unclear but the exchanges between her and the Benchers demonstrate the not inconsiderable obstacles that might face women and men alike (although it is worth speculating that the Committee's desire not to have two women students might explain the number of problems Powley encountered). The Law Society of Upper Canada's Archives, Series 1–01, Minutes of Convocation (June 1895) [hereinafter L.S.U.C. Archives].

12. The third woman to be called to the bar, Géraldine Robinson, was a lawyer's daughter from St. Thomas. She would marry a lawyer and their son would take up his parents' profession. Robinson's call in 1907 was followed by that of two other women, Grace Hewson in 1908 and Jean Cairns, 1913. Enrolment statistics, for women's enrolment in the post-World War One period and total numbers of students have been taken from Cole, supra note 6 at 156–58, 196–97. The numbers of women students have been compiled by a number of researchers from a variety of sources at the Law Society of Upper Canada's Archives: minutes of convocation, graduation photographs, and the Ontario Bar Biographical Research Project Database (1990) [hereinafter O.B.B.R.P.]. I would like to acknowledge the painstaking work of Susan Binnie, Nora Jaffary, Roy Schaffer, and Cynthia Wright in gathering these figures. Since the law school did not collect yearly totals of the numbers of women enrolled, it is extremely difficult—if not impossible—to state definitively the precise number of women students. However, the research in these sources, as well as qualitative material (such as interviews with women lawyers) make it clear that women law students at Osgoode Hall comprised a much smaller group than their male counterparts. For statistics on Canadian women's enrolments in undergraduate and other professional programs from 1901 to 1941, see Axelrod, Paul, Making a Middle Class: Student Life in English Canada during the Thirties (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990) at 152Google Scholar [hereinafater Making a Middle Class].

13. For total enrolments, see Cole, supra note 6 at 214–15. See Axelrod, ibid. Newspaper accounts in the 1950s and 1960s made much of the increased numbers of women called to the Bar. See “Ladies' Day, Too” The [Toronto] Telegram (21 June 1951); “Lawyers Receive Call in Convocation” The [Toronto]Globe and Mail (24 June 1955); “230 Men, 8 Women Law Graduates” The [Toronto] Star (20 April 1963). For statistics on Canadian women's enrolment in post-secondary institutions after 1945, see Prentice, Alison et al. , Canadian Women: A History (Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987) at 426.Google Scholar

14. Backhouse, supra note 3 at 326 and 429.

15. Such as Annie Epstein Baker or Lilian Sandier Gordon. See Kates, Christine and Silverman, Anne, Osgoode Society Interviews (July 1990 & 22 April 1991)Google Scholar [hereinafter O.S.I.].

16. O.B.B.R.P., supra note 12, include material on lawyers' parents' occupations and their religious and ethnic backgrounds, although it is not available for every file. Nor is there a file on each woman lawyer or law student. However, the information provided by this database provides a collective profile of law students that is very similar to the students of Axelrod's study. See Axelrod, supra note 12 at 4, 24.

17. Jean O'Rourke, called in 1931, listed her father, Bernard, as a hotel-keeper in Caledonia. See O.B.B.R.P., files No. 1888, 1026, 1803, 3412, 359, ibid.

18. See ibid., files No. 1990, 223, 1894, 1414, 2756, 858, 2585, 710.

19. Ibid. Most of these degree-holders had attended the University of Toronto; a few had been to Queen's or the University of Western Ontario (given that the majority of women came from South, South-Western, and Central Ontario, the predominance of these universities is not surprising).

20. While the media's coverage of these women's careers emphasized their femininity, as the clippings compiled by the W.L.A.O. attest, they received considerable attention from the press (particularly Kinnear, who was often portrayed in domestic settings with her sister). Scrapbooks 1 and 2, W.L.A.O. Archives [hereinafter W.L.A.O. Archives]. For discussions of women lawyers' motivations and concepts of professionalism in the American context, see Drachman, Virginia G., “My ‘Partner’ in Law and Life: Marriage in the Lives of Women Lawyers in Late 19th– and Early 20th–century America” (1989) 14:2Law and Society: Journal of the American Bar Association 221Google Scholar [hereinafter My ‘Partner’ in Law and Life]; Drachman, Virginia G., Women Lawyers and the Origins of Professional Identity in America; The Letters of the Equity Club, 1887–1890 (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1993) at 25Google Scholar [hereinafter Women Lawyers]. For Vera Parsons, see infra note 22.

21. At the age of ten, Hyndman was taken to hear the 1911 parliamentary debates over reciprocity. She claimed that her decision to enter the law was set when she was told that all the speakers but one were lawyers. Hyndman's father, though, discouraged her from taking up a scholarship she had won to the University of Toronto, persuading her that the law was not a “woman's profession.” She then worked as a secretary for a real estate lawyer in Toronto who taught her a great deal about the law. After another secretarial job, Hyndman entered Osgoode Hall and was called to the Bar in 1926. In 1938 she became the second woman in the British Empire to be made a King's Counsel. She was involved with a number of prominent cases. She acted as part of the team that represented Dorothea Palmer, prosecuted in 1937–1938 for the distribution of contraceptives. She successfully represented the Consumers' Association in their post-war fight to sell coloured margarine and fought the case up to the Privy Council. In the early 1970s, she represented native women in the Lavell case which challenged native women's loss of status upon marriage to a non-native. She also was very active in women's voluntary groups such as the Federation of Business and Professional Women and founded a chapter of the American-based women's legal sorority, Kappa Beta Phi, in Ontario in 1937 (an organization, it should be noted, that apparently discriminated against Jews and, in the United States, African-Americans). Hyndman lobbied for a number of women's rights' issues throughout her career, such as the Equal Pay Act and Royal Commission on the Status of Women, as well as supporting female candidates for the Liberal party. She was given the Person's Award in 1988. See O.S.I., supra note 15, Margaret Hyndman with Christine Kates, July 1987; also Black, Delma, “Champion of Women's Rights” The [Toronto] Star (13 October 1988).Google Scholar

22. O.S.I., ibid. at 10, Hyndman with Kates at 10. Vera Parsons who, like Hyndman, was one of the few women lawyers to make court appearances (and for most of this period was the only woman criminal lawyer in Ontario), seems to have been attracted to the law as a way of “making a difference” in society. Parsons, the daughter of a Toronto merchant, had studied at the University of Toronto, Bryn Mawr, and the University of Rome. Prior to her career as a criminal lawyer, she had lived in a settlement house in Toronto's Italian community. Parsons, though, did not focus as directly on issues relating to women as did Hyndman. When she ran for a Bencher's position, at least one female colleague attributed her lack of support for her candidature to Parsons' “never show[ing] any interest in the Women's Law Association or women's causes, or their aims.” Parsons herself was disabled—a childhood bout of polio had left her unable to walk without a cane. It is possible that part of her support for immigrants and her willingness to practice a less lucrative and certainly less “respectable” area of law may have been triggered by a personal sensitivity to socio-economic and cultural privileges. For Parsons, see O.B.B.R.P., supra note 12, file No. 2880; Platt, Priscilla, “Some Pieces of a Life” (1975) 40:5The Advocate 11–13Google Scholar; Platt, Priscilla, “Woman Defence Counsel Says Law is ‘Hard Work’” The [Toronto] Globe and Mail (20 October 1944).Google Scholar

23. L.S.U.C. Archives, supra note 11; W.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbook 2. Harrison also had studied household science as part of her course work at the University of Toronto but apparently law held out better prospects.

24. O.S.I., supra note 15, Lil Sherizen Charon with Christine Kates, May 1991 at 15. Familial expectations, as well as her own desire, led Lilian Sandier Gordon to enter law school. Gordon was, by her own account, an argumentative child who had wanted to be a lawyer from the age of nine. While no other members of her working-class, Jewish family had done so, she received a great deal of support from them. “Education-mad,” as she put it, they supported her emotionally and financially, feeding and clothing her during law school and subsidizing her in her first years of practice at College and Spadina. O.S.I., ibid., Gordon with Kates and Silverman (22 April 1991 at 6–12.

25. O.S.I., ibid. Margaret Campbell with Christine Kates, May 1990 at 53. Margaret Smith, who was called in 1944, attributed her desire to become a lawyer partly to her mother's and aunt's determination that she should attend university and receive some kind of useful training. However, she was also influenced by the example of her uncles, specialists in Admiralty law in Halifax. Smith's uncles were quite affluent and they also were not subject to a strict routine. To her 16-year-old eyes, her lawyer-uncles enjoyed a great deal of “individual freedom.” 0.5./., ibid., Margaret Smith with Christine Kates (June 1991) at 42–47.

26. Mary Frawley Lamont and Annie Epstein Baker fall into this category. Lamont, though, came from a middle-class Catholic family and her father was the Chief of Obstetrics at St. Michael's Hospital, while Baker was the daughter of Jewish immigrants who had arrived in Canada in 1911 from Russia via Leeds and her father was a barber. After her graduation from the University of Toronto in 1934, Lamont's father told her she should either continue her education or get a job and, as there were few prospects of the latter (in her words, “you were lucky to be a salesclerk at Eaton's or Simpson's”), she decided to continue at school and, urged by a woman friend, went to Osgoode. Baker, on the other hand, had wanted to attend university and become a professor but had left school at 15, being unable to complete Grade 13 since the family's scanty financial resources were devoted to her older brother's medical career. Once she began articling, her salary made an important contribution to the household. Baker was aware of discrimination based on her religion and ethnicity, while the latter claimed that her Catholicism was never a problem. To be sure, these two women entered law because of a perceived lack of alternatives and because their parents did not or could not entertain the idea of either woman being without some kind of useful occupation until their marriages. However, Mary Lamont's alternatives to Osgoode Hall were quite different from those open to Annie Epstein Baker. The anti-semitic hiring practices of various retail establishments in Toronto during this period would have made it extremely difficult—if not impossible—for Baker to have been “a salesclerk at Eaton's or Simpson's.” O.S.I., ibid., Mary Frawley Lamont with Christine Kates, (16 May 1991); Baker with Kates and Silverman (July 1990).

27. Ibid., Smith with Kate at 43.

28. Cott, Nancy, The Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1987) at 225–26.Google Scholar

29. Women Lawyers, supra note 20 at 23–27. For a discussion of the continuation of women's organizational work in the inter-war period, see Alison Prentice, “Proving Themselves in Public Life” in Prentice et al., Canadian Women, supra note 13. See also Strong-Boag, Veronica, “Working for Pay” in Boag, S., The New Day Recalled: Lives of Girls and Women in English Canada, 1919–1939 (Markham, Ont.: Penguin, 1988). At 225–239Google Scholar, Cott provides a particularly nuanced and insightful discussion of the tensions between feminism and professionalism in the 1920s.

30. For a discussion of Manitoba women lawyers' feelings about family law, see Kinnear, supra note 2 at 429.

31. Petticoats and Prejudice, supra note 3 at 313.

32. O.S.I., supranote 15, Eileen Mitchell Thomas with Christine Kates (1990) at 3.

33. Ibid., Campbell with Kates at 10.

34. Ibid., Hyndman with Kates at 15.

35. Kyer & Bickenbach, supra note 6 at 136–208. While the program changed after 1945 and became more consistent in its emphasis on classroom work, many of the women interviewed attended Osgoode Hall lectures in the early morning and late afternoon, articling in between.

36. “Letters” Obiter Dicta [hereinafter OD.] (December 1967); also Bankier, Jennifer, “Women and the Law School: Problems and Potential” (1974) 22:5Chitty's L.J. 171 at 172.Google Scholar

37. O.S.I., supra note 15, Lamont with Kates at 31–32.

38. L.S.U.C. Archives, supra note 11, Helen De La Roche Roberts with Nora Jaffary (July 1992).

39. Kinnear has very similar findings about articling for women, both Christian and Jewish, in Manitoba. See Kinnear, supra note 2 at 423. For a discussion of anti-semitism in the Ontario legal profession in the 1920s, see also Curtis Cole's interview with David Croll (9 November 1987) at 13 [unpublished]. I would like to thank Dr. Cole for sharing this interview with me. In the 1940s, McCarthy's hired the first Chinese-Canadian woman law student, Gretta Wong, as an articling student.

40. O.S.I., supra note 15, Baker with Kates and Silverman at 59.

41. Ibid., Gordon with Kates at 5.

42. Ibid., Baker with Kates and Silverman at 56.

43. Ibid., Charon with Kates at 9.

44. Ibid. at 11–13.

45. Ibid., Baker with Kates and Silverman at 63.

46. For example, ibid., Lamont with Kates at 33; Smith with Kates at 138; Thomas with Kates at 25.

47. Ibid., Roberts with Jaffray at 2–3. For a similar discussion of Manitoba women lawyers, see Kinnear, supra note 2 at 423–25. This particular aspect of the legal profession in the 20th century has received very little attention from historians. Willie's study examines the ways in which all-male fraternal associations, informal networks, and “lifestyle examples” helped shape the professional culture of Winnipeg lawyers from 1878 to 1900.

48. Petticoats and Prejudice, supra note 3 at 336.

49. O.S.I., supra note 15, Campbell with Kates at 8; Lamont with Kates at 34; L.S.U.C. Archives, supra note 11, Series 32; Osgoode Hall Legal and Literary Society, Box 1, File 10, Seating Plan (31 October 1938) [hereinafter O.H.L.L.S.].

50. Although the anecdote may be apocryphal, one of the earliest but unidentified women law students was apparently hit on the head with a shoe in the lecture room (admittedly, the shoe might have been intended for a male student). Thanks to Cynthia Wright for passing this anecdote on to me.

51. O.S.I., supra note 15, Baker with Kates and Silverman at 75.

52. After World War II, when enrolment increased dramatically and classes had moved to the Metropolitan Church, women students were instructed to use the staff washroom in the building. W.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbook 3, Public Notice, 13 September 1948. As late as 1989, the W.L.A.O. was still publishing reports of courts that lacked robing rooms for women lawyers. WLAO Archives, ibid., vol. 10, “W.L.A.O. Newsletters” 1989.

53. In 1963, the “House Committee” of the students' organization, the Legal and Literary Society, proposed that the “ladies' common room” be amalgamated with the men's. The Chairman of the Committee, Joel Freedman, argued that the latter room was severely overcrowded and that the women's room was “virtually empty at any time of the day.” He also stated that a minority group of “card and chess players” was taking up too much space and that all students would benefit from having free access to both rooms. O.H.L.L.S., supra note 49, Box 3, File for 1962–1963 (O.D. clipping).

54. L.S.U.C. Archives, supra note 11, Series 13–8–14, Building Records, W. E. Smith to Mr. Heeney (19 September 1938).

55. For a discussion of this process, see Laqueur, Thomas, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, c. 5–6, (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

56. O.S.I., supra note 15, Campbell with Kates at 73. For an exploration of the spatial organization of women's colleges, see Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteeth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s (Boston: Beacon, 1984).Google Scholar

57. O.S.I., ibid., Thomas with Kates at 3; Lament with Kates at 34; Smith with Kates at 75.

58. “Lady Lawyers Honour Dr. Hoyles” The [Toronto] Star (25 April 1925).

59. Ibid. A few prominent women, the majority of whom were not lawyers, sat as police court magistrates in this period. One woman, Edith Paterson, who replaced British Columbia's Helen Gregory McGill on the bench after she was dismissed by Premier Tolmie, was a graduate of Osgoode. Perry, Anne Anderson, “Our Women Magistrates: An Examination of their Point of View” Chatelaine (July 1929) 11.Google Scholar See also Chunn, Dorothy, From Punishment to Doing Good: Family Courts and Socialized Justice in Ontario, 1880–1941 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).Google Scholar

60. Petticoats and Prejudice, supra note 3 at 313.

61. For discussions of efforts to create “school spirit” at the law school, particularly in the 1920s, see Cole, supra note 6 at 167; Kyer & Bickenbach, supra note 6 at 39. For student culture in Canadian universities, see Paul Axelrod, “The Extra-Curriculum” in Making a Middle Class, supra note 12; also Axelrod, Paul & Reid, John, eds., Youth, University, and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1989).Google Scholar For the United States, see Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures From the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987).Google Scholar

62. Edmison, J. Alex, “The Spotlight on our Average Law Student” O.D. (18 March 1929).Google Scholar

63. Ibid.

64. “Letters to the Editor” O.D. (20 April 1930); “A View of the Moral Duty to Aid Others As a Basis of Tort Liability” O.D. (17 January 1934). For masculinity and the legal profession in the United States, see Grossberg, Michael, “Institutionalizing Masculinity: The Law as a Masculine Profession” in Cames, Mark C. & Griffen, Clyde, eds., Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) 133.Google Scholar

65. O.H.L.L.S., supra note 49, Box 1, Constitution File, H. Stewart to George McCallagh (9 February 1939); Box 1, Correspondence File 1933–1934, “Publicity Manager” to City Editors, Toronto Daily Star, Globe, Telegram, Mail and Empire (7 January 1935).

66. Kaplan, Iva S., “Historian Smiles, Gasps, Giggles at Times Past” O.D. (13 February 1930).Google Scholar The “Floradora Sextette” referred to the women who appeared in a 1900 musical Floradora. Their beauty apparently turned the show into a hit on Broadway. These performers, unlike the supposedly staid and unattractive women law students, attracted the attention of many young men.who came regularly to see the sextette and lavished expensive gifts on them. Laufe, Abe, Broadway's Greatest Musicals (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969) at 6.Google Scholar Many thanks to Cynthia Wright for passing on this reference.

67. O.S.I., supra note 15, Gordon to Kates at 26.

68. “From Your Dean” O.D. (Fall 1956) 5.

69. See, for example, O.D. (23 March 1933); “Moot Court News” O.D. (15 April 1932) 3; “Debating” O.D. (15 January 1934) 2; “Election Results” O.D. (19 February 1937) 4; “Results of the Lit Election” O.D. (21 April 1938) 1.

70. McLean, Sadie, “Why Women Come to Osgoode” OD (December 1942) 8.Google Scholar

71. “Osgoode Goes to the Polls Today” O.D. (15 April 1932).

72. “Moot Court” O.D. (27 April 1933) 3.

73. See especially issues of the OD from 1929 to 1932.

74. “Trojan Woman of Law Offices Outshine Men” O.D. (13 February 1930).

75. Ibid. An Ontario delegate to the Canadian Bar Association's meeting in 1928 commented on the futility of law students' articling: “Intelligent lady stenographers can do almost anything students can … [W]hat is left for a junior student can be performed by an office boy … it may well be questioned whether every law office is a safe place for a law student to obtain his practical training.” Kyer & Bickenbach, supra note 6 at 106. Articling, in this lawyer's mind, was replete with tasks suitable for subordinates (in this case, women and boys), not for the young men preparing to be called to the bar and a position (it would be hoped) at the head of a law office.

76. O.H.L.L.S., supra note 49, Box 1, Correspondence and Accounts File, 1929–1930; Box 1, Constitution File, 1938–1939, H. Stewart to Major Black (8 November 1938). Well into the post-war period, organized sports at Osgoode appear to be only for men, although the installation of a ping-pong table in 1938 might have given women students some recreation. O.H.L.L.S., ibid., Box 2, File 1939–1940, D. M. Treadgold to W. E. Smith (20 September 1939); Box 2, File 1952–1953, W. E. Smith to W. K. Robinson (17 January 1952); Box 4, File 1959–1960, Athletic Association's proposed budget, 1959–1960.

77. O.H.L.L.S., ibid., Box 1, File 1934–1935, Campbell Colder to Norman M Parks (19 January 1935).

78. I do not want to overlook the reasons why women students might have gone along with this practice but the records do not even hint what their motivations might have been. Furthermore, the fact remains that it was male students who were provided with “dates” and not, for the most part, women.

79. Appleby, Mary, “The Entry of Women into the Profession of Law and Their Hopes” O.D. (17 January 1934) 1.Google Scholar

80. Ibid.

81. Wigle, Ruby, “Sisters in Law” (1927) 5 Canadian Bar Review 419.Google Scholar

82. Ibid.

83. For a discussion of the Person's Case, see Prentice et al., supra note 13 at 281–82.

84. Drachmán, My ‘Partner’ in Law and Ufe, supra note 20, analyzes the ways in which strategies of separation and integration were handled by American women lawyers of the 1920s. Some managed to reconcile the tensions between marriage and career by practicing with their husbands. To date, I have found one example for this period in Ontario. Vera Robinson Cartwright, who was called in 1917, ran a partnership with Helen Currie (called in 1921) for a few years; upon her marriage in 1935, she and her husband opened an office in his home city of Kingston. W.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbook 1.

85. “Portia's Banquet” O.D. (20 April 1937).

86. Cole, supra note 6 at 196–98.

87. See Nancy Kiefer & Ruth Roach Pierson, “The War Effort and Women Students at the University of Toronto, 1939–1945,” in Axelrod & Reid, eds., supra note 61, 161 at 161. While there was a Canadian Officers' Training Corps at Osgoode, Cole, ibid. at 198, argues that the school's rules were not bent for enlisting students, as had been the case in World War One. Moreover, I have not found evidence of official Red Cross Training for women students, unlike the University of Toronto. Kiefer & Pierson, ibid. at 167–68. Possibly women law students participated in volunteer work in other venues.

88. Elise Brunet, Curator, The Law Society of Upper Canada Archives (July 1992) [Private communication].

89. O.S.I., supra note 15, Thomas with Kates at 50; Campbell with Kates at 70. A number of women lawyers mentioned that women were asked to take over men's practices for the war's duration. Certainly the Law Lists from 1939 to 1947 show a steady growth in the number of women lawyers (from 21 in 1939 to 65 in 1947) although it is difficult to know if all of these women were actively practicing. Osgoode Hall, Great Library, Law Lists (1939–1947).Google Scholar

90. “Work and Play: Married Ones at Osgoode” Charta (1957–1958); “Bar Calls Veterans” The [Toronto] Globe and Mail (25 April 1946); “Law Students in Church House” The [Toronto] Globe and Mail (9 September 1948).

91. See, for example, O.B.B.R.P., supra note 12, files No. 3305, 60, 61, 965, 921, 804. Without similar information on male students, it is very difficult to even speculate as to why the number of women who dropped out rose in the post-war period. Possibly more women, influenced by wartime and post-war ideas of equal educational opportunities, entered professional training but were then faced with continuing inequalities in post-secondary institutions and became disheartened. Prentice et al., supra note 13 at 324–29.

92. O.S.I., supra note 15, Thomas with Kates at 39. It is unclear whether or not Thomas was the first woman instructor at the law school.

93. See Pierson, Ruth Roach, They're Still Women After All: The Second World War and Canadian Woman hood (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986) at 215Google Scholar; Brandt, Gail Cuthbert, “Pigeon-Holed and Forgotten: The Work of the Subcommittee on the Post-War Problems of Women, 1943” (1982) 15:29Social History 239Google Scholar; Susan Bland, M., “Henrietta the Homemaker and Rosie the Riveter: Images of Women in Advertising in Maclean's Magazine, 1939–1950” (1983) 4:2Atlantis 61.Google ScholarW.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbooks 6–8, are a rich resource for LaMarsh's career. See also Howarth, Dorothy, “Woman Grad Honored For Coffee shop Help, Levity At Osgoode Amid Ceremony” The [Toronto] Telegram (30 June 1950).Google Scholar LaMarsh was given a gold key at her call for her work in setting up a coffee shop and Coke machine for her fellow students.

94. See Millar, Lillian D., “Careers: the Modern Portia Has Won Professional Recognition” Saturday Night (25 August 1945) 30Google Scholar; also, “Career Field Wide Open for Modern Miss” The [Toronto] Telegram (5 April 1951).

95. “Woman Lawyer Wins Gold Medal,” and “Woman Lawyer at Brampton Thrilled at Being Made K.C.” The [Toronto] Globe and Mail (22 June 1945); “Family Tradition,” clipping of Joan Walker Robinette's call in 1957, posed with her father, John. W.L.A.O. Archives, ibid., scrapbook 6.

96. “Skirts and Gowns” O.D. (October 1960) 5.

97. Ibid (November 1960) 7.

98. Deirdre Mungovan, “A Feminine View” O.D. (October 1963).

99. “Oz Goodie” in “Counsel Comer,” O.D. (November 1966).

100. For example, “The New Look in the Library” O.D. (October 1966).

101. “Warm Welcome for First Year” O.D. (September 1966) 1.

102. See O.D. (10 December 1968) at pp. 1, 5.

103. Ibid. at 4; also O.D. (2 September 1969), (16 September 1969) (15 October 1969). Graham Parker, an Osgoode professor, wrote in O.D. that at the reunion of the graduating class of 1969, the nine women of that class were “pioneers who had to endure a brand of male chauvinism only found today in an engineering faculty. The “Oby Dick” of 1967–1969 had an I.Q. of 72 but was wall-to-wall cheesecake. The female graduates at the dinner presented their male buddies with a gigantic pink pig.” O.D. (29 October 1984). This pig was tracked down and given a special place in the Law Society's 1993 exhibit “Crossing the Bar.”

104. For a discussion of male hedonism and consumerism in the “sexual liberation” of the 1960s, see Ehrenreich, Barbara, The Hearts of Men (London: Pluto, 1983).Google Scholar

105. “Letters” O.D. (December 1967).

106. “Who is the Law Student? A Minority Report” O.D. (20 November 1965).

107. “Where Women Are Chattels” O.D. (28 October 1969).

108. “Women's Liberation confronts Osgoode” O.D. (6 November 1970). A “Women's Caucus” column also began to appear regularly in the paper from 1977 on.

109. W.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbook 1, 1897–1933, “First Annual Report.”

110. See, for example, O.S.I., supra note 15, Lamont with Kates at 45.

111. See W.L.A.O. Archives, scrapbook 1, 1897–1933.

112. For example, see “Women's Law Society Stock-Taking Meeting” O.D. (5 February 1932); “Judge H. Kinnear Honored by W.L.A.O.” and “Women Lawyers Feted at Port Colborne Party: Miss Helen Kinnear Entertains Ontario Law Association at Tea” W.L.A.O. Archives, ibid., scrapbook 3.

113. O.S.I., supra note 15, Hyndman with Kates at 73. She was, though, involved in the Association for at least a short time. When asked about her involvement in the W.L.A.O., Annie Epstein Baker replied that she didn't go, since she felt that it was “silly to go and listen to a judge lecture to you, on any topic almost … and he is talking down to you anyhow, because he thinks you don't know anything.” O.S.I., ibid., Baker with Kates & Silverman at 80.

114. Hyndman's career deserves its own exploration, including an assessment of her anti-semitism. In many ways she appears to resemble Charlotte Whitton, another single woman who devoted much of her life to her career. Hyndman was probably more liberal than Whitton (certainly she was a Liberal Party supporter). See Rooke, Patricia & Schnell, R. L., No Bleeding Heart: Charlotte Whitton, A Feminist on The Right (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987).Google Scholar

115. As in the description of the lunch for Hoyles, supra note 68.

116. For the constant struggle American women lawyers faced in reconciling femininity with professional identity, see Drachmán, , Women Lawyers, supra note 20 at 13–16, 23–27.Google Scholar

117. L.S.U.C. Archives, supra note 11, series 1–01, Minutes of Convocation (21 January 1926) 308.

118. For a discussion of the growth of these groups, see Cole, supra note 6 at 151.

119. W.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbook 2.

120. The [Toronto] Mail (24 January 1931).

121. O.S.I., supra note 15, Smith with Kates at 95–96.

122. W.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbook 2, “Portias at a Party.”

123. Ibid. See newspaper clippings on these talks.

124. W.L.A.O., Report on Prison Reform, presented to the Toronto Board of Control, 1946.

125. Ibid. A copy of the report and Globe clippings about it are in this scrapbook. It is also discussed by Charon in her interview” at 44.

126. See W.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbooks 3–4. Charon ran for alderman in Ward Four in Toronto. See “Osgoode Grad Seeks Post in Ward Four” The [Toronto] Daily Star (22 November, 1960) [hereinafater Osgoode Grad]. Margaret Campbell also sat as an alderman in 1959, where she worked to set up a legal aid clinic in Regent's Park North and to change regulations that cut off welfare payments to mothers receiving support payments from their husbands. In 1973, she was elected in a by-election as the Liberal MLA for St. George and sat until 1981. As an MLA, Campbell worked for equal pay, an end to violence against women, and called for the inclusion of sexual orientation in the human rights code. O.S.I., supra note 15, Campbell at 72; W.L.A.O. Archives, ibid., scrapbook 10.

127. For example, Helen Kinnear was the President of Port Colborne University Women's Club and Port Colborne Women's Liberal Association; Grace Hunter, called in 1926, was a president of the University Women's Club in Toronto, a member of the Canadian Women's Press Club, and active in the Toronto Local Council of Women. W.L.A.O. Archives, ibid., scrapbook I. Charon was an executive member of the Zionist Organization of Canada, the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, and the Jewish National Fund. See Osgoode Grad, ibid. Baker was the president of the Toronto section of the National Council of Jewish Women. O.S.I., ibid., Baker with Kates and Sil verman at 108.

128. For example, Eileen Mitchell Thomas was called just before she was to speak to the Canadian Bar Association by its president and told that she could not attend its Montreal meeting as the club at which its dinner was held would not allow women. Mitchell retorted: “[W]ell, I have done everything I could to let you know that I still wear a skirt, I think you should have looked into it by now.” Thomas refused his offer to pay for dinner for herself and a friend; instead, she went out by herself for dinner and drinks. O.S.I., ibid., Thomas with Kates at 93.

129. The Canadian Journal of Women and the Law provides various feminist analyses of the legal profession and is increasingly including discussions of the relations between gender, race, and sexual orientation. See, for example, Mossman, Mary Jane, “Otherness and the Law School': A Comment on Teaching Gender Equality” (1985) 1 C.J.W.L. 213Google Scholar; Boyle, Christine, “Teaching Law As If Women Really Mattered: or, What About the Washrooms?” (1986) 2:1C.J.W.L. 96Google Scholar; Pickard, Toni, “Is Real Life Finally Happening?” (1986) 2:1C.J.W.L. 150Google Scholar; McIntyre, Sheila, “Gender Bias Within the Law School: ‘The Memo’ and its Impacts” (1986) 2:1C.J.W.L. 362Google Scholar; Monture, Patricia, “Ka-Nin-Geh-Heh-Ga-E-Sa-Nonh-Yah-Gah,” (1986) 2:1C.J.W.L. 159Google Scholar; Robinson, Ann, “Themis retrouve l'usage de la vue” (1989) 3 C.J.W.L. 211Google Scholar; Herbert, Jacinthe, “‘Otherness’ and the Black Woman” (1989) 3:1C.J.W.L. 269Google Scholar; Feldthusen, Bruce, “The Gender Wars: ‘Where the Boys Are’” (1990) 4 C.J.W.L. 66.Google Scholar See also Kay, Fiona, Women in the Legal Profession:, report submitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada (August 1989)Google Scholar; also Kay, Fiona, Transitions in the Ontario Legal Profession: A Survey of Lawyers Called to the Bar Between 1975 and 1990 (May 1991).Google ScholarBroekman, Joan, “‘Resistance by the Club’ to the Feminization of the Legal Profession” (1992) 7:2C.J.L.S. 47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

130. Glazer, Penina & Slater, Miriam, Unequal Colleagues: The Entrance of Women into the Professions, 1890–1940 (New Brunswick & London: Rutgers University Press, 1987) at 14.Google Scholar

131. Verona Taylor Whatmough, who was called in 1920, practiced with Irwin, Hales, and Irwin and then became a librarian with the York County Library. She married an American professor and published Annotations to the Statutes (W.L.A.O. Archives, supra note 20, scrapbook 2). Elizabeth Newton, called in 1921, became the York County Law Association's librarian and was remembered by her colleagues as being very well-informed, “highly respected by the bar,” and a “first-rate public speaker.” She was active in the W.L.A.O. and ran against Vera Parsons as a Bencher in 1944 (O.S.I., supra note 15, Smith with Kates at 84–86). Mary Buckley Laughton, who was called in 1915 and worked as a junior solicitor in Clara Brett Martin's office, did not practice but instead took a social service course at the University of Toronto. She became the General Secretary of Big Sisters from 1917 to 1921. See W.L.A.O. Archives, ibid., scrapbook 1. Gretta Wong Grant was called in 1946 but then obtianed a degree in psychology and worked in Corrections and as a psychologist before returning to law. See “Gretta Grant” in Sugiman, Momoye, ed., Jin Guo: Voices of Chinese Canadian Women (Toronto: Women's Press, 1992).Google Scholar

132. Prentice et al., supra note 13 at 200.