90 Days to Financial Stability

The UK passed the Married Woman’s Property Act and two years later, in Illinois, the freedom of occupational choice was granted to both men and women. Yet, when Myra Colby Bradwell – who studied as her husband’s law apprentice – tried to pass the Illinois bar to practice as a lawyer, the US Supreme Court ruled in 1873 that the Illinois bar didn’t have to grant a license to a married woman. Mary Gage opened a stock exchange for women who wanted to use their own money to speculate on railway stocks. Meanwhile, the Witch of Wall Street – Hetty Green – was consolidating her own fortune. (In a later entry I want to write about Ms. Green) If you were looking at France in 1881, you would see that women are the right to own bank accounts, married women received this right five years later. The US didn’t grant the same rights until the 1960s and the UK, not until 1975. In 1908, Oregon restricted workday hours for females to ten hours – because of course, women were too fragil...