Willebrandt, Mabel Walker (1889–1963)

American government official. Born Mabel Walker on May 23, 1889, in Woodsdale, Kansas; died of lung cancer on April 6, 1963, in Riverside, California; daughter of David William Walker (a newspaper editor) and Myrtle (Eaton) Walker (a teacher); expelled from Park College in Parksville, Missouri; graduated from the State Normal School in Tempe, Arizona, 1911; University of Southern California, LL.B., 1916, LL.M., 1917; married Arthur F. Willebrandt (a school administrator), in February 1910 (divorced 1924); children: one daughter, Dorothy Rae (adopted).

Career as educator included positions at public schools in Buckley, Michigan, and Phoenix, Arizona, and appointments as principal at both Buena Park School in Los Angeles, and Lincoln Park School in Pasadena, California; appointed head of Legal Advisory Board, District Eleven, Los Angeles (1914–19); admitted to the bar in California (1916); appointed assistant public defender of Los Angeles; appointed assistant attorney general of the U.S. (1921); argued over 40 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court; helped establish the first federal prison for women (c. 1925); became first woman to chair a committee on the Republican National Convention (1928); returned to private practice (1929); published monograph The Inside of Prohibition (1929); obtained pilot's license (c. 1940).

Mabel Walker Willebrandt was born in Woodsdale, Kansas, in 1889, into a family that valued education over financial gain. Her father, a newspaper editor, moved from town to town, working for small newspapers across the country while her mother found a suitable teaching job until the family's next relocation. Educated at home in her early years, Willebrandt did not receive formal schooling until the sixth grade, by which point she had developed an independent view of life. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Park College in Parksville, Missouri, only to be expelled for openly expressing religious opinions that differed with those of the college administration. By age 17, Willebrandt had sufficient qualifications to pursue a career in

education; she got a job teaching high school classes in Buckley, Michigan, and then proceeded to marry the principal, Arthur F. Willebrandt.

Her husband's medical problems forced the family to move several times before they ultimately settled in the Los Angeles, California, area, where Willebrandt got a job as principal of Buena Park School, and then of Lincoln Park Grammar School. She next enrolled at the University of Southern California and graduated with an LL.B. in 1916. She passed the bar exam that year, and the following year received an LL.M. degree from the University of California. Adding her voice to those of other attorneys wishing to form a public defender's office in Los Angeles, Willebrandt saw this goal reach fruition. However, because of her married status, she was offered only a job as public defender for women charged with criminal offenses, a position that was unpaid, but which nonetheless offered her the opportunity to help over 2,000 poor individuals while starting her private practice as an attorney.

Willebrandt's volunteer efforts on behalf of justice, as well as her commitment to the Republican Party platform in California, continued through World War I, during which time she was appointed head of the Legal Advisory Board for draft cases for the largest draft board in Los Angeles. In 1921, at the age of 32, Willebrandt was appointed by President Warren G. Harding to the U.S. Justice Department, based on the recommendation of her Republican colleagues in California. The enforcement of Prohibition laws decreed by passage of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would occupy much of Willebrandt's time in her new position as an assistant attorney general of the United States, despite the fact that she was not personally in favor of the constitutional revision. Earning the nickname "Prohibition Portia," Willebrandt successfully prosecuted the vast majority of cases charged to her, and successfully petitioned to have over 250 accepted for review by the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to clarify the new law and regulate its enforcement. (One of her most widely publicized prosecutions involved popular singer Helen Morgan , who had been duped into believing there was little danger in running a speakeasy.) Forty of those cases she argued before the Court herself. Willebrandt also wrote articles in support of Prohibition for magazines like Ladies' Home Journal and Good Housekeeping, and spoke out in an effort to gain public support for the new laws, encouraging law enforcement agencies to focus on the major lawbreakers rather than local speakeasies and still-owners.

In addition to her high-profile efforts on behalf of Prohibition, which she would later detail in The Inside of Prohibition (1929), Willebrandt accomplished much in other facets of government. In the area of prison reform, she was successful in establishing the first federal prison for women, Alderson Prison in West Virginia, and made other strides in modernizing the means by which the nation rehabilitated its criminals. In 1928, now the highest-ranking woman in a federally appointed position and actively involved in the campaign to elect Herbert Hoover to the office of president, Willebrandt was asked to chair a committee at that year's Republican National Convention. However, the public outcry over Prohibition and its factor as a central issue in the upcoming presidential campaign made her job as enforcer of laws banning the sale and distribution of alcohol a source of controversy. Resigning her post within the Republican National Convention, Willebrandt left the Justice Department in May 1929, and retired to private practice. Establishing offices in both Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, she counted among her clients the California Grape Growers, the Aviation Corporation, and the Screen Director's Guild. Although she was divorced from her husband in 1924, Willebrandt remained determined to have a child, and in 1925 adopted two-year-old Dorothy Rae, whom she raised with the help of friends. In addition to teaching herself to fly at the age of 50, Willebrandt remained active in civic life and in the American Bar Association (ABA), where she became the first woman to chair an ABA committee—the committee on aeronautical law. Moving between homes in Washington, D.C., and California, and a farm she owned in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Willebrandt had a reputation as a generous woman, a skilled host, and an energetic debater. She died in 1963, at age 74.

sources:

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1980.

Weatherford, Doris. American Women's History. NY: Prentice Hall, 1994.

Pamela Shelton , freelance writer, Avon, Connecticut