Jennie Loitman Barron

Suffragist, lawyer, judge

Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Quick Facts

Significance:

Suffragist, lawyer, judge

Place of Birth:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

October 12, 1891

Place of Death:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

March 28, 1969

Place of Burial:

Sharon, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Sharon Memorial Park

Later recognized as a trailblazing lawyer and judge, Jennie Loitman Barron advocated for women’s suffrage as a prolific orator during college and the early years of her career.

Born in Boston on October 12, 1891, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents Morris and Fanny Loitman, Jennie Loitman grew up in Boston’s West End neighborhood. At just 12 years old, Loitman began working in a shoe factory and later, during high school, she sold books from door-to-door. After graduating at the top of her class at Wells grammar school, she enrolled at Boston University in 1906 at the age of 15.¹

Loitman excelled as a student at Boston University. She completed her undergraduate courses in three years, rather than the standard four. At night, Loitman taught classes for immigrants. Beyond the classroom, Loitman advocated for women’s suffrage. In 1906—her freshman year—she organized the Boston University’s Women’s Suffrage Association.² As its president, she led the association, claiming:

Our aim is to convince the opposition by such methods as open meetings and debates, and we have already succeeded in rousing many of the students from their apathy. We have attained a membership of 20 and applications are steadily coming in.³

After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in 1913, she entered law school and completed it in two years, again graduating a year early. However, at only twenty years old and, therefore, too young to take the bar exam, she enrolled in Boston University’s Master of Law program. In the midst of fervent suffrage activism, Loitman passed the bar exam in 1914 and began practicing law.⁴

Loitman continued her suffrage work even as a working attorney. She gave many addresses at open-air meetings around Boston and its neighboring cities in support of the cause. Like Margaret Foley and others, Loitman often drew crowds at street corners in downtown Boston, Dorchester, Back Bay, West Roxbury, and even Boston Common.⁵ Once, in the summer of 1915, rain interrupted Loitman’s speech at the Boston Common. A large audience of 500 people encouraged her to finish after heavy rain eased, and she did. In her speech, she questioned those who felt women only had a role in the home:

You seem to be very anxious that women should care for the home. But how can women care properly for the home unless they have something to say in the politics that affects the home in more ways than you ever dream of…Giving woman the ballot won’t make a paradise of the world in a moment, but it will help to straighten out some things that men seem to overlook in the world.⁶

While prolific in Boston, Loitman also traveled to speak in other cities in the state. She captivated an audience in Fall River by asking them to consider how men would feel if they were deprived of the right to vote in her speech, “Put Yourself in His Place.”⁷ She frequently spoke to her “co-religionists”—her fellow Jewish community—about the movement. In Lynn, she addressed members of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association and spoke at a following rally to more than 500 Jewish residents.⁸

In 1918, Loitman married Samuel Barron, another Boston lawyer, and they opened a practice together. Following the ratification of the 19^th Amendment in 1920, Barron continued to advocate for women’s rights as a lawyer. She led a committee in the League for Women Voters focused on reforms to marriage, divorce, and guardianship laws, and advocated for women to serve on juries.⁹ Her efforts successfully improved legal rights for women.

Barron also broke significant barriers in her career and political life. Barron, herself a mother, ran for Boston’s School Committee in 1925. She received more than 70,000 votes and became the only elected female member on the committee. She served in the position until 1930.¹⁰ She also became the first woman to present a case before a Grand Jury, as well as the first woman to prosecute a criminal case in the state of Massachusetts.¹¹

Barron’s career progressed steadily. After years as an attorney, in 1934, Governor Joseph Buell Ely appointed Barron as a special justice to the District Court of western Norfolk. Barron’s daughter explained that her mother enjoyed her work as a judge more than her work as a lawyer, because “she can really mete out justice, and after all, her whole life has been motivated by this feeling, this desire to find true justice.”¹²

Considered “the crowning success to all her labours,” at the time, Governor Charles Francis Hurley appointed Barron as a judge of the Boston Municipal Court in 1937. She became the first woman justice appointed full-time in the state of Massachusetts. But Barron’s successes did not end there. After 21 years serving the public as a Municipal justice, Governor Foster Furcolo appointed her to the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1957.¹³

In 1960, Barron had the honor to address Faneuil Hall on the Fourth of July, the first woman to do so on Independence Day.¹⁴ She spoke of her Russian ancestry, as a first generation American, and the ideas of American freedom:

Do you understand then why, today, commemorating the birthday of freedom, I am deeply touched? We learned that in America it made no difference where your cradle or your mother’s cradle was rocked, in Russia, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, or on the Mayflower. … In order to safeguard the heritage of freedom … we must always remember that our government is a government of laws, and not men.¹⁵

Jennie Loitman Barron continued to serve her country until she died in Boston on March 28, 1969. Her remains are buried in Sharon Memorial Park. As a testament to her lifelong commitment to public service, her grave is inscribed with the quote, “She lives in the acts of goodness she performed.”¹⁶

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Footnotes

1. Jennie Loitman Barron, Biographical information re: Jennie Loitman Barron; Picture of her; Newspaper clippings re: her, 1936-1947, undated; Articles by Jennie Loitman Barron, 1924, undated; Membership and sponsor list of Woman's Centennial Congress, March, 1940; Copy of theme by her daughter, Deborah L. Barron, 1940.. Woman's rights collection, 1853-1958, WRC, 13., Box: 01. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute.; Christian Science Monitor, April 23, 1910, Archive.org.
2. Jennie Loitman Barron, Biographical information re: Jennie Loitman Barron, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute; Boston Globe, March 28, 1969, 41.
3. Christian Science Monitor, April 23, 1910, Archive.org.
4. Boston Globe, March 28, 1969, 41; Boston Globe, February 4, 1914 ; Jennie Loitman Barron, Biographical information re: Jennie Loitman Barron, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute.
5. Boston Globe, July 7, 1914, 14; Evening Herald, October 2, 1915, 12; Boston Globe, July 29, 1915, 2; Boston Globe, August 23, 1915, 14; Christian Science Monitor, August 4, 1915; Boston Globe, August 14, 1915, 10; Daily Item, October 25, 1915, 14.
6. “Great Suffrage Rally in Rain,” Boston Globe, August 23, 1915, 14.
7. Evening Herald, October 2, 1915, 12.
8. “Miss Loitman’s Suffrage Appeal to the Hebrews,” Daily Item, October 7, 1915, 3.
9. Barron is put on the NPS map at the address of the Barron and Barron legal practice at 11 Beacon Street, Boston, as listed in the 1936 Boston City Directory, Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Jennie Loitman Barron, Biographical information re: Jennie Loitman Barron, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Boston Globe, March 28, 1969, 41.
14. Boston Globe, July 5, 1960, 4.
15. Helaine Davis, “Jennie Loitman Barron,” Jennie Loitman Barron - Boston Women's Heritage Trail.
16. “Jennie Loitman Barron,” Find A Grave, Judge Jennie Loitman Barron (1891-1969) - Find a Grave Memorial.