page_title: Judith Ellen Foster
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Judith Ellen Foster / Career
caption_attribution_description: Judith Ellen Foster (1840-1910)
context_page_description: Judith Ellen Horton Foster was an American lecturer, temperance worker, and lawyer. She is thought to be the first woman in Iowa who was actually engaged in practice and the fourth woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Iowa. In her time she was known as "The Iowa Lawyer".
context_section_description: After her second marriage in 1869, she studied law and was admitted to the bar at Clinton, Iowa, in 1872. She occasionally helped her husband in trial cases, and is thought to be the first woman in Iowa who was actually engaged in practice. She was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Iowa on October 20, 1875, being the fourth woman admitted to practice before that tribunal. At first, she practiced alone, but afterwards, formed a partnership with her husband. She followed the legal profession for a number of years. In her time, she was known as "The Iowa Lawyer".
  Foster was a Methodist and joined the temperance workers when the crusade opened. Her home in Clinton was burned, presumably by opponents of temperance. As a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, she served as superintendent of the legislative department. Her knowledge of law enabled her to help the movement for the adoption of constitutional amendments in the various states aimed at securing the prohibition of the sale and manufacture of alcoholic liquors. She wrote a pamphlet on the legal bearings of the question. She was popular and successful as a lecturer: the DeWitt Observer reported on June 5, 1874, that "one of the best temperance lectures we ever listened to was delivered in the M. E. Church last Sabbath evening by Mrs. Foster of Clinton. The house was filled to overflowing. The audience was delighted with the lecture."
  In 1887, Foster visited Europe, where she studied the temperance question. In England she addressed large audiences. Returning to the United States, she took part in the International Council of Women in Washington. She published the Constitutional Amendment Manual (1882) and a number of pamphlets and magazine articles on temperance. 
  Foster was a pronounced suffragist. She maintained that no organization had the right to pledge the influence of its members to any other organization for any purpose. Her views naturally led her to affiliate with the Non-Partisan League, and she served that body for several years as corresponding secretary, having her office in Boston. She served her own state union as corresponding secretary and president for many years. 
  In 1900, Foster was with the Taft Commission in the Philippines to study the conditions of women and children there. Attorney General George W. Wickersham appointed her a member of a committee to investigate conditions in Federal prisons. As a representative of the American Red Cross, Foster and Clara Barton were sent to St. Petersburg by Secretary of State John Hay in 1902. In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed her to study conditions of woman and child workers throughout the nation. In 1907 she was appointed a special agent of the Department of Justice, and in 1908 she advocated the addition of a woman's wing to the Federal prison at Fort Leavenworth.
  For many years Foster was the president of the Women's Republican Association and an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Young Women's Christian Association.
caption: J. Ellen Foster
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