Iowa's 175th Anniversary of Statehood
December 20, 2021 3:46pm

First Woman Lawyer
Arabella “Belle” Babb Mansfield (1846-1911) became the country’s first woman lawyer when she passed the bar examination in 1869. Although she hadn’t attended law school, she did study for two years in her brother’s law office in Mount Pleasant. She also was a champion for women’s suffrage, chairing the first Iowa Suffrage Association state convention in 1870.