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Strong-Minded Woman
The Story of Lavinia Goodell, Wisconsin's First Female Lawyer
Mary Lahr Schier

She took the law into her own hands

Written for younger readers, Strong-Minded Woman provides an engaging look at the life of Lavinia Goodell, Wisconsin's first female lawyer. Telling Goodell's story from 1858, when she first decided to become a lawyer, to her place as an actual attorney in the courtroom, Mary Lahr Schier recounts Goodell's hard work and determination as she taught herself the law.

Born in 1839 to abolitionist and transcendentalist parents, Lavinia Goodell grew up determined to change the world. As she met the runaway slaves that stayed at her childhood home and listened to the preaching of her church, Lavinia began to form her own ideas about the world. She decided to be a lawyer, even though her sister told her to stop "trying to be a man."

Mary Lahr Schier is a freelance journalist. She lives in Northfield, Minnesota.

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the cover of Schier's book is in tones of brown and black, with an oval portrait of Lavinia Goodell.

July 2001
112 pp. 6 x 9    
5 b/w photos
Book icon
 Cloth $21.95 t
ISBN 978-0-9671787-3-8 
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