FOLTZ, CLARA SHORTRIDGE
Clara Shortridge Foltz has been called Califor-
nia’s First Woman. The first woman on the
Pacific Coast to pass the bar, she did so after suc-
cessfully LOBBYING the legislature to change a
law that denied women the right to become
lawyers. She was the first woman to serve as clerk
of the judiciary committee of the state assembly,
to be selected as a trustee of the State Normal
School, to serve on the California State Board of
Charities and Corrections, to serve as a deputy
district attorney in Los Angeles, and to run for
governor. She was the first woman to argue a
motion in the New York City courts. And, in
1893, she was the first person to propose a
model public defender bill—the blueprint for
the system that remains in place today. Her
efforts resulted in the passage of the bill in more
than thirty states.
Foltz was born July 16, 1849, in New Lisbon,
Henry County, Indiana, the second of five chil-
dren, and the only girl, to Elias Willets Short-
ridge and Telitha Cumi Harwood Shortridge,
both of Indiana. Her father was at times a drug-
gist, a lawyer, and a preacher in the Campbellite
Church.
The Shortridges moved to Dalton Township,
Wayne County, Indiana, the next year. By the
time Clara was eleven years old, the family was
living in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. There, she
received her only formal education, at Howe’s
Academy, a progressive school whose mission
and purposes were coeducation, WOMEN’S
RIGHTS, and the ABOLITION of SLAVERY.She
earned honors in Latin, philosophy, history, and
rhetoric.At age fourteen, she accepted a teaching
post near Keithsburg, Illinois, which she held for
only one term because, at age fifteen, on Decem-
ber 30, 1864, she eloped with a Union soldier,
Jeremiah Richard Foltz.
The Foltzes lived on a farm in Iowa, where
they had the first three of their five children. In
1871, Foltz’s husband moved to Oregon; in
1872, Foltz and their four children (the youngest
being nine weeks old) followed. She found him
working as a clerk for miniscule pay. To support
her family, she went to work as a dressmaker and
took in boarders.
In 1875, Foltz and her family moved to San
Jose, California. Although her marriage ended
there in 1877, her public life began. Foltz
became involved in the suffrage movement,
attending, and then giving, lectures. Foltz also
began her legal career in San Jose. She attempted
to study with the preeminent member of the
legal community Francis Spencer, but he refused
her request. Foltz then turned to C. C. Stephens,
who was a friend, an occasional legal partner,
and a fellow silver prospector of her father’s.
Stephens accepted her as a student at his firm,
Black and Stephens.
In 1877, California law allowed only white
males over twenty-one years of age and of good
moral character to become lawyers. Foltz wrote
a proposed amendment to section 275 of the
Code of Civil Procedure, changing “white male”
to “person.” Foltz and her sister suffragist Laura
deForce Gordon lobbied throughout the
twenty-second session of the California Legisla-
ture for the Woman Lawyer’s Bill. It easily passed
the senate but met strong opposition in the
assembly. Foltz’s ally, the senate sponsor of the
bill, Grove L. Johnson, switched his aye vote to
nay in order to move for reconsideration of the
defeated bill. After a heated debate at the very
end of the legislative session, the Woman
Lawyer’s Bill passed the assembly. The bill nearly
died until Foltz managed a last-minute audience
with Governor William Irwin. In the waning
hours of the session, on the last possible day,
