McCulloch, Catharine (1862–1945)

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McCulloch, Catharine (1862–1945)

American lawyer and suffragist . Name variations: Catharine Waugh McCulloch; Catharine Gouger Waugh McCulloch. Born Catharine Gouger Waugh on June 4, 1862, in Ransomville, New York; died of cancer on April 20, 1945, in Evanston, Illinois; daughter of Abraham Miller Waugh and Susan (Gouger) Waugh; attended Union College of Law, 1885–86; Rockford Female Seminary, B.A., M.A., 1888; married Frank Hathorn McCulloch (a lawyer), on May 30, 1890; children: Hugh Waugh (b. 1891); Hathorn Waugh (b. 1899); Catharine Waugh (b.1901); Frank Waugh (b. 1905).

Became partner of Chicago firm of McCulloch & McCulloch (c. 1890); admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court (1898); elected justice of the peace (1907); co-founded the Mississippi Valley Conference (1912); served as president of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois (1916–20); named senior counsellor of the Illinois Bar Association (1940).

Selected writings:

Mr. Lex (1899); Bridget's Daughters (1911); A Manual of the Will Contests in Illinois (1929).

Catharine McCulloch practiced law in an era when many of the legal protections granted to free male citizens of the United States did not extend to women. Born in 1862 to parents of Irish and French Huguenot ancestry, she spent her first years on a farm in New York state. When she was five, the family moved to another farm in Illinois, where she attended public school in New Milford. Her father was well versed in the law, though not formally trained, and often helped his neighbors with land claims; from him, she developed a keen interest in the subject. She graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1882 and in 1885 entered Chicago's Union College of Law (forerunner of North-western University Law School). Though she was admitted to the Illinois bar, she found it difficult to practice in Chicago because of a bias against woman attorneys, and so returned to Rockford and established a practice there.

McCulloch also went back to school, and was granted bachelor's and master's degrees in 1888 from Rockford Seminary after producing a thesis on women's wages. In 1890, she married a former law-school classmate, Frank Hathorn McCulloch, who was supportive of all her endeavors, in a ceremony presided over by temperance activist and suffragist Reverend Anna Howard Shaw . Catharine then joined her husband's firm (the name of which was changed to McCulloch and McCulloch) in Chicago, and had the first of their four children in 1891. She also became involved in women's suffrage. McCulloch served as legislative superintendent of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, and in that capacity wrote a suffrage bill that was not ratified by the state legislature for 20 years; it finally passed in 1913, giving Illinois women the right to vote in presidential elections some seven years before the 19th amendment made women's suffrage the law of the land. More quickly passed was a 1905 law she wrote which raised the age of consent for women from 14 to 16 years of age.

An accomplished attorney admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1898, McCulloch was also a popular public speaker and interview subject for newspapers. Her forays into literature reflected her interest in women's rights: Mr. Lex (1899) dealt with the lack of legal status for married women and mothers, and helped to pass a 1901 Illinois law that granted women equal status as guardians of their children. She also wrote a suffragist play, Bridget's Daughters, in 1911. A year later, she co-founded the Mississippi Valley Conference, a coalition of suffrage leaders that became the locus of the suffrage movement in the Midwest and organized annual conventions for a number of years. From 1916 to 1920, she was the president of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois.

A longtime legal adviser to the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), McCulloch played an active role in a movement toward another constitutional amendment that became effective in 1920—the ban on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. After 1920, she served on committees of the newly formed League of Women Voters, was active in numerous Chicago organizations, and was twice elected justice of the peace for the Chicago suburb of Evanston. With her husband, she wrote A Manual of the Will Contests in Illinois, published in 1929. In her later years, she and her husband traveled extensively, studying legal systems in other countries; their three sons became lawyers, and their daughter Catharine Waugh married one. Catharine McCulloch died of cancer in Evanston, at age 82, and was buried in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery.