Caroline Kilgore: Sixteen Years to Practice Law

Caroline Burnham Kilgore wanted to be a lawyer. Pennsylvania spent about ten years trying to stop her.

Born in eighteen thirty-eight, Kilgore first applied to attend law school and was refused. She then sought to sit for the bar examination and was refused again. When she finally passed and tried to practice in the state courts, that too was blocked. She had already earned a medical degree. She fought each barrier in turn, and eventually became the first woman admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania courts. She was also an active suffragist, pushing for the right to vote with the same persistence she brought to the courtroom door. Kilgore lived near here in her later years. A historical marker placed in twenty twenty-four finally put her name in public view on the streets where she spent her life, more than a century after her death in nineteen oh nine.