Mary O'Toole

O'Toole was born in Hacketstown, County Carlow, Ireland[5] to Nicholas O'Toole and Brigid O'Toole (née O'Connor). Her father Nicholas was imprisoned in Naas Gaol in 1882 because he was a follower of Charles Stewart Parnell's no-rents campaign.[1][6]

O'Toole emigrated to the United States at age 16.[1] She was the first woman to be naturalised in Steuben County, New York, in 1900,[7] and afterwards became the first woman to be appointed official stenographer in Steuben County.[7]

O'Toole studied at Washington College of Law,[2] completing her Bachelor of Laws in 1908,[7] and Master of Laws in 1914.

She was first appointed Judge of the Municipal Court of Washington, D.C. by President Harding in 1921.[1][8] At the time of her appointment, there were only three woman judges in the United States.[9]

In 1924, she was a delegate at a meeting of the American Bar Association, held in London.[10]

She was re-appointed to the Municipal Court by President Coolidge in 1925.[11]

O'Toole was a member of the board of trustees of the Washington College of Law,[12][9] and held the position of Acting Dean of the College while Dean Grace Hays Riley attended the American Legion Convention in Paris in September 1927.[13]

In January 1928, E. E. Dudding, national president of the Prisoner's Aid Society, wrote to the Department of Justice nominating O'Toole to fill the vacancy on the bench of the District of Columbia Supreme Court caused by the resignation of Judge Adolph Hoehling, stating, "There is no better lawyer in Washington or anywhere else. She knows the law. She is judicial. She would make one of the best judges to be found and would, I think, raise public opinion of Federal courts".[14]

O'Toole was reappointed to the Municipal Court by President Hoover in 1929.[11]

In 1930, O'Toole was named one of the 50 women who had done the most for Washington by The Washington Post.[15][16] Referring to O'Toole as a "pioneering woman member of the bench" and "a fixture in Washington's judiciary system", The Washington Post in 1934 reported on how, prior to her initial appointment, "the very mention of her name as a prospective member of the bench made usually dignified men pace the floor and use undignified language".[9]

In 1931, she was elected to the executive committee of the National Association of Women Lawyers,[17] which her colleague Dr Ellen Spencer Mussey had helped found in 1919. She spoke at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the National Association of Women Lawyers on 5 August 1936.[18]

O'Toole was also a member of the Phi Delta Delta Women's Legal Fraternity[19][20] and the District of Columbia Women's Bar Association.[8][21][22]

O'Toole was the first president of the Women's City Club of Washington, D.C.[26][27] which was founded in 1919. On the club's ethos, O'Toole said the group hoped to attract not only women in the academic and professional sphere, but housewives as well.[28] The Club's charter called for a "better understanding among women, and a place for women to meet and socialise".[28]

She was the first woman to be chosen as director of the Washington Chamber of Commerce,[1][7] and was a director in the Citizens Savings Bank of Washington, D.C.[1][7]

O'Toole also had membership with the Sulgrave Institution,[17] the Columbia Historical Society,[17] the Catholic Actors Guild,[17] the American Catholic History Association,[29] the American Association of University Women, and the National Women's Republican Club (New York City).

O'Toole's great-grandniece is Lucy Mulhall, captain of the Irish Women's Rugby sevens team.[30][31]

• Women in the United States judiciary
• Women in law
• List of first women lawyers and judges in Washington D.C. (Federal District)
• List of first women lawyers and judges in the United States
• Timeline of women lawyers in the United States