EP. 96: The All-Woman Supreme Court

Wise About Texas

Ken Wise

Texan, Places & Travel, Education, Texas, Cowboy, History, Society & Culture, Culture, Jacinto, Texans, San

5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2021

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1925, there were only a few women lawyers in Texas. But women still couldn't serve as jurors and nobody dreamed there would ever be a female judge. Then a real estate lawsuit came to the Texas Supreme Court involving a mutual life insurance company called the Woodmen of the World. At the time, every member of the Supreme Court of Texas was a member of the Woodmen of the World, so were disqualified from hearing the case. That left Governor Pat Neff with a problem. He had to appoint judges to sit on the Supreme Court but couldn't find any that weren't affiliated with the Woodmen. So he did what Texans have done since 1836, he turned to Texas women. Hear about the first all-female state Supreme court in American history in the latest episode of Wise About Texas.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the Texas History Podcast.
0:12.7	I'm your host, Ken Wise.
0:13.9	I want to thank you for tuning in to Texas today.
0:17.9	This episode is being released at the end of January 2021,
0:21.7	so I hope everybody is off to a good start for the new year.
0:25.3	We're in a legislative session year here in Texas which is always active and
0:29.4	exciting a little bit different during lockdown situations that are still occurring but the
0:35.8	capital is open so they'll give you a COVID test and you can go in there and see
0:41.4	your legislature in action.
0:43.0	Although check before you go to make sure that there's limited space in the gallery,
0:48.0	so make sure, but I always encourage you during a legislative session to spend some time in the capital if you can.
0:53.6	It is the people's capital and you should go down there and check it out,
0:58.4	especially if you love Texas history.
1:00.0	Of course there's a lot of history in that capital and it's really a good time to spend a day
1:05.6	just walk in the halls.
1:07.6	Today we're going to talk about something that occurred in that capital building back in 1925.
1:14.0	You know, it's inevitable with Texas's growth
1:17.0	that the government buildings are often repurposed.
1:20.0	So if you go into historic courthouses or other historic buildings, including the capital,
1:26.0	a lot more used to occur in that building than occurs now because the government grows and you
1:32.3	need additional space and
1:34.3	additional buildings. Well in 1925 the Texas Supreme Court sat in the
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