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Dorothy Thomas

Dorothy Thomas, a writer, editor and lecturer, is a graduate of Hunter College and New York University. Her publications include biographies, articles on information science, and oral histories. She lectures on women and economics and women and the legal profession. Thomas is working on a history and collective biography titled Women, the Bench and the Bar.

Articles by this author

Elizabeth Blume Silverstein

Elizabeth Blume Silverstein’s long and productive life revolved around her work in criminal law, real estate management, and Jewish life. After successfully defending Orzio Ricotta on a homicide charge, a first for a New Jersey woman lawyer, Silverstein became a public speaker, and she was involved in law, politics, and Zionism.

Frances Wolf

Frances Wolf was a pioneering lawyer who pushed for women’s bar admission in the early twentieth century. Of the approximately eighty women who were instrumental in opening up the legal profession for women in the United States, Frances Wolf was the first Jewish woman in that very select group.

Martha A. Wetstein

Martha A. Wetstein quickly and briefly became a bright star in prison reform. At twenty-two, she was a delegate to the National Prison Congress of 1902. By the time she was twenty-five, she is said to have been the second Jewish probation officer in the United States and the first to supervise all the Jewish cases in Philadelphia.

Rosalie Loew Whitney

Rosalie Loew Whitney was the first woman to become the acting attorney of the New York Legal Aid Society. Following her husband’s death in 1934, Mayor LaGuardia appointed Rosalie Whitney first deputy license commissioner of New York City and, in 1935, a justice of the Domestic Relations Court.

Lillian Rock

Lillian Rock was a pioneering twentieth-century lawyer, advocate, and organizer who fought for the advancement of women around the world.

Rebecca Pearl Lovenstein

In 1920, Rebecca Pearl Lovenstein became the first woman lawyer allowed to practice in Virginia. She went on to create a state bar association for women.

Anna Weiner Hochfelder

Anna Weiner Hochfelder used her legal expertise to help women’s groups serve their members more effectively. Unusual for the time, she continued her law career while her husband raised their children.

Susan Brandeis Gilbert

The daughter of Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Susan Brandeis Gilbert became one of the first women attorneys to argue a case before the Supreme Court.

Edith Fisch

With great courage and dogged determination, Edith Lond Fisch became a lawyer, legal writer, and law professor despite severe physical limitations, educational prejudices, and sexual discrimination. Edith Fisch wrote an important book on evidence which became regularly cited by judges and used in law schools throughout New York.

Evangelyn Barsky

One of the first two women allowed to pass the bar in Delaware, Evangelyn Barsky made a great impact on her community in her brief career.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Dorothy Thomas." (Viewed on March 19, 2024) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/thomas-dorothy>.