Portia's Sisters: Transatlantic Networks for Women in Law, 1912–33

In her memoir La Longue Route, Parisian attorney Marcelle Kraemer-Bach wrote that the American political activist Carrie Chapman Catt inspired her: “I believe I was born a suffragist, but Mrs. Catt made me an enthusiastic suffragist, and I have remained one ever since.” Indeed, French and American women’s rights activists energized each other in a long and fruitful transatlantic alliance.

This paper will trace the rise of the European-American alliance among feminist jurists and lawyers in the early twentieth century and examine the status of this relationship on the occasion of the 1933 “Century of Progress” Chicago World’s Fair. The International Council of Women (ICW) held a meeting in conjunction with the Fair, organized by American attorney and women’s rights leader Lena Madesin Phillips. Kraemer-Bach, representing the French National Council of Women (CNFF), also played a leadership role at the ICW meeting. During her visit to the U.S. Kraemer-Bach brought further attention to feminist issues while meeting with leaders such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park. The interconnections between the French and the American women’s rights movement viewed from this angle allow us to see patterns of development – and contrasts – over time.

The sources include conference proceedings, published and unpublished correspondence, newspaper articles, “Century of Progress” Records held in the Special Collections of the University of Illinois at Chicago, memoirs, and personal papers from sites such as Harvard’s Schlesinger Library and the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand (Paris).

This presentation will also include images from Hildreth Meière’s 60’ mural commissioned by the National Council for Women for the Women’s Exhibit at the 1933 World’s Fair depicting key events and figures in U.S. women’s history from 1833 to 1933. The mural is no longer intact but a 20’ section exists in fragile condition at Smith College’s Museum of Art.