In the fall of 1927, Columbia Law School opened its doors to its first women students. Three-quarters of a century later, recent entering classes have been at least fifty percent female. Appropriately, the Law School is about to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the admission of its first women students as well as the achievements of Columbia Law School women over the past seventy-five years.
As part of that celebration, Columbia Law School is publishing this booklet which contains excerpts of audiotaped interviews of twenty of the alumnae who graduated from the Law School during the 1930s and 1940s. Through the words of these Columbia women, we can begin to understand and appreciate the challenges faced by these pioneering female lawyers as well as their considerable achievements.
The Oral History Project was initiated during my term as president of the Columbia Law School Association as a project of that association. What we sought to do was to preserve the voices of as many of the earliest women graduates as possible, and thus to enrich the history of the Law School. Recognizing the increasing presence of women at the Law School and in the profession, we believed it was important for future generations of Columbia Law School students and graduates, both women and men, to have a sense of the past.
Initially, this project was carried out by a group of volunteers drawn from the membership and board of the Columbia Law School Association, the Alumnae of Columbia Law School, the Board of Visitors, and the Law School administration. These volunteers were provided with a day of training by the Columbia University Oral History Research Office. We are grateful to the volunteers for their efforts, to the professional staff of the Oral History Research Office for the training provided and for the completion of this phase of the project and, most of all, to the Columbia Law School women who shared a part of their story with us.
-- Susan Badian Lindenauer '64
