History Focus |
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A short focus on a person or event associated with this day in History.
| Belva Ann Lockwood- (1830-1917) American lawyer, reformer, and women's rights advocate. Belva Lockwood was born Belva Bennett in Royalton, New York on October 24, 1840. She was admitted to the bar in Washington, D.C., in 1873. In 1879 she drafted the law, passed by Congress in that year, which admitted women to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, and became the first woman lawyer to practice before the Court. In 1884 and in 1888 Lockwood was the candidate of the Equal Rights party for the presidency of the U.S. |
Apollo Hall People's Convention The Equal Rights Party was officially founded in New York City on May 9-11, 1872. Victoria Woodhull, the parties first presidential candidate, had publicly announced her intention to run for President as early as 1870. The Apollo Hall People's Convention, as it was officially known, seemed off to a good start. But in spite of their numbers, their buoyant enthusiasm, their splashy coverage in the press, and the sincerity of their partisans, the Apollo Hall People's convention did not inaugurate the grand coalition of reform that its organizers had dreamed of. The party quickly faltered. Twelve years later the Equal Rights Party was revived when Belva Lockwood, a well-known women's rights leader, and a woman who once served on the Resolutions and Platform Committee of the 1872 Apollo Hall People's Convention, announced her candidacy for President. Lockwood actively campaigned and garnered 4,149 votes in six states. Her greatest political victory came when Indiana's electors, having cast their votes for Cleveland, changed their minds and declared for Lockwood. Unfortunately by then it was too late to change
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