Born: 1873, United States
Died: 14 November 1947
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
Caroline G. Thummel McCarthy and Adelaide O’Brien were the only law partnership of women practicing in the Western United States in the 1910s (as reported on February 11, 1915 by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). When St. Louis women attorneys organized the Woman’s State Bar Association of Missouri, the first association of women lawyers in the world, Caroline G. Thummel was the President. She was also an accomplished poet, publishing several books of poems. In 1910 she publicly stated that if women had equal opportunities with man in the industrial world, they would have a wider circle from which to choose a potential husband and could do so with more particularity, therefore decreasing the number of divorces by, instead of a girl having to marry at any cost, she could remain single until she could marry her mental, moral and physical equal.
At the beginning of her career in 1911 she stated “I want to be a help to widows and orphans and women whose education prevents them fighting their own battles.” Thummel was successful in investigating the treatment of workhouse prisoners, and was very active in various reform movements for to reduce human suffering. Thummel lectured before the law class at the City College of Law and Finance; it was the first time in St. Louis that two women, Thummel (for “Commercial Law”) and O’Brien (for “Torts”), were appointed lecturers on law, leading classes composed of both men and women. Because the Missouri Bar Association barred women lawyers from its membership (although the American Bar Association admitted them), 19 attorneys organized the Woman’s Bar Association of the City and State, with Thummel as president and O’Brien as vice-president.