THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL 28 | SEPTEMBER 2024 Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff. Women in Law Kathryn Sturdevant KATHRYN CLYDE “KITTIE C.” STURDEVANT was born Sept. 10, 1890, in Cyclone, Texas,1 to Charles Wesley and Mary Alice Toole Sturdevant.2 From the age of 4, she was encouraged by her father, a lawyer, to become a lawyer. He knew the time would “come when women would be more active in business affairs,” so they “should all be trained for professional work.”3 After graduating from Shawnee High School in 1908, she went to New York City to become a student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.4 Upon returning to Shawnee, she went to work as a stenographer with the law firm of Biggers and Lydick.5 Mr. Lydick acknowledged her “legal mind” and encouraged her to study law the day she timidly suggested that perhaps he had omitted the jurisdictional statement essential to the petition for an important damage suit.6 Several Pottawatomie County attorneys also took an interest in her study of the law. Ms. Sturdevant said, “I had the advantage of having several attorneys who were university graduates just to tutor me all the way through until 1912 when I took the (bar) examination.”7 She would later say, “My law school was in the university of hard knocks.”8 In her study of the law under Mr. Lydick, she gained valuable experience in Indian land matters, railroad damage suits and the general practice of law.9 In addition to her work and study with Mr. Lydick, she also took a correspondence course at the Blackstone Institute in Chicago.10 After statehood, the Oklahoma Supreme Court included in the admission requirements that the applicant pass a three-day state bar examination.11 The final question on the 1912 bar examination was, “Is it lawful for a man to marry his widow’s sister?”12 The lone female applicant in 1912, Ms. Sturdevant responded, “It is unlawful for a marriage relationship to exist between a woman and the ghost of a man.”13 Making the highest grade out of the 125 participants, Ms. Sturdevant was one of the first women in Oklahoma to be admitted to the bar through examination.14 In prior years, a tradition had been established that the clerk of the Supreme Court would give a choice bird dog to the person attaining the highest grade on the bar examination. When it became known that the highest grade had been made by Ms. Sturdevant, the clerk – who thought a lot of his bird dogs – said he didn’t want them to go to anybody who didn’t know how to hunt, so according to Ms. Sturdevant, he gave her a check instead.15 In 1912, when she was admitted to the bar and began her law practice in Oklahoma City, female lawyers were something of a rarity. The public was not accustomed to female lawyers and doubted that a female was capable of handling legal matters as men did. Some of the judges were also skeptical, and crowds would gather in the courtroom doorway when she tried a case.16 “At least in the first 20 years, I had to do something much better than a man lawyer would do to get recognition,” Ms. Sturdevant once said.17 Her determination and hard work gained her the respect required to practice law in those days. Another obstacle presented itself when Ms. Sturdevant was nominated by attorney Edgar A. DeMeules for membership in the voluntary bar association in 1913. Mr. DeMeules concluded his nomination with the following poem: They talk about a woman’s sphere As though it had a limit: There’s not a place in earth or Heaven,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTk3MQ==