THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Marguerite Rawalt
October 16, 1895 – December 16, 1989
“As long as you’re right, you know it’s a thing that ought to be done and you keep at it.”
Writer, lawyer, lobbied in Congress on behalf of women’s rights, Civil Rights Act. Worked over 30 years as an attorney in the office of chief counsel, Bureau of Internal Revenue (IRS), 1933–1965. President, National Association of Women Lawyers, 1942-1943. First woman president of Federal Bar Association, 1943. President, National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs (NFBPW), 1954-1956. Opened Maguerite Rawalt Resource Center, oldest library in nation to focus on economic issues for women, 1960. Served on President John F. Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women, 1961 and was the lone vote on that commission in support of the ERA. One of the original founders of National Organization for Women (NOW), 1966. Chair, NOW Legal Committee, 1966-1969. President, Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL). Established WEAL’s Legal Defense Fund, 1972; later renamed Marguerite Rawalt Legal Defense Fund (MRLDF).
Photo. Left to right, unknown person, National Organization for Women (NOW) founder and president Betty Friedan; NOW co-chair and Washington, D.C., lobbyist Barbara Ireton (1932-1998); and attorney Marguerite Rawalt (1895-1989). (Photo, Smithsonian Institution)
More About Marguerite:
- Obituary, Corpus Christi Times
- Be Somebody: A Biography of Marguerite Rawalt, by Judith Paterson
- “She’s a Pioneer in Women’s Rights,” Corpus Christi Times, July 1982
- “Lib Lawyer Predicts Rights Passage,” Corpus Christi Times, July 1971
- Marguerite Luella Rawalt, Legal History Blog
- “Rawalt in Review,” by Trustman Senger, The Washington Post, August 28, 1986
- Columbia Center for Oral History, Columbia University
- Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute
- Marguerite Rawalt, Wikipedia
- Cited in Barbara Love’s Book, Feminists Who Changed America, 1963 – 1975, page 375