Clara Shortridge Foltz (1849-1934), was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and died in Los Angeles, California. Foltz was the first woman to be a lawyer on the Pacific Coast (California, 1878). She kept extensive career scrapbooks, wrote many letters and was in the process of writing her autobiography when she died.

This part of the website is devoted to Professor Babcock's biographical works regarding Foltz. Included here are articles and speeches that Professor Babcock has published in the course of the biography-in-progress, with multiple citations to sources for other women lawyers. Generally, these articles show the relation of the early women lawyers to the movements for suffrage and other reforms.

Also availabe on this site is the autograph book of Trella Foltz Toland, the oldest child of Clara Shortridge Foltz. The entries in the autograph book span the years 1894 to 1905.

Please contact Professor Babcock at Stanford Law School if you have any of Clara Shortridge Foltz's papers, scrapbooks, letters, etc. (or know of their possible location). Thank you.

Clara’s Legacy: Celebration and Ceremony

Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center Dedication (2002)