BARRON, JENNIE LOITMAN

BARRON, JENNIE LOITMAN (1891–1969), U.S. lawyer, suffragist, judge, and community leader. Barron was born in Boston, the third of four daughters of Fannie and Morris Loitman. An outstanding student, she earned her undergraduate, law and master of law degrees from Boston University between 1908 and 1914 while working at night teaching Americanization classes. She opened a law practice in Boston in 1914. An active suffragist, Barron become the first president of the Boston University Equal Suffrage League and continued working for women's causes throughout her life, including women's rights to serve on juries, to become notaries, and to have uniform laws on marriage and divorce. Following her 1918 marriage to Samuel Barron, a graduate of Harvard Law School, she and her husband founded Barron and Barron, a law firm that continued until 1934 when Jennie Barron began a 30-year career in the judiciary when she was appointed a special judge for Norfolk County, Massachusetts. Barron and her husband had three daughters. Throughout her life she hosted Friday night Sabbath dinners at her home for her children and their growing families. Barron was awarded the National Mother of the Year Award by American Mothers, Inc. in 1959 when she was already a grandmother several times over.

In 1937, Barron was named an associate judge of the Boston Municipal Courts. In 1957 she was the first woman appointed as a full-time justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court. Active in numerous volunteer organizations, Barron was the president of the Massachusetts Association of Women Lawyers, the first president of the Women's Division of the American Jewish Congress, a national board member of Hadassah, and chair of the League of Women's Voters, among numerous other appointments.

bibliography:

"Barron, Jennie Loitman," in: P.E. Hyman and D. Dash Moore (eds.), Jewish Women in America 1 (1997), 122–23; Obituary, in: New York Times (March 30, 1969).

[Judith R. Baskin (2^nd ed.)]