Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would Be President
Jill Norgren:. Foreword by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg. 309 pages. © 2007

Belva Lockwood seems a most unlikely candidate to run for president of the United States. But that is exactly what she did in 1884. While not the first woman to aim for this position, she was the first to mount a sophisticated campaign with an organizational base, fundraisers and national publicity.
Born Belva Bennett on October 24, 1830, she grew up in Royalton, New York, the second of five children. At age 14 she was hired to teach in a rural school at half the salary paid to a male. She met Susan Anthony at teachers meetings where they fought and lost the battle for pay equity. She married Uriah McNall when she was 18 and was widowed 4 years later. Leaving her daughter Lura with family, Belva enrolled at Genesee College and graduated with honors in 1857. Here she attended lectures on law and the Constitution.
In 1866 she and Lura moved to Washington where she taught school near the capitol in mornings and visited sessions of Congress in afternoons. Belva married Ezekiel Lockwood in 1868; their child died in infancy. Influential lawyers, impressed with her forceful, resolute personality and her determination, aided her studies and admission to the D.C. Bar in 1874. Gaining admission to practice before the Supreme Court took more than 3 years and required passage by Congress of a bill permitting women lawyers to practice in federal courts. Accompanied by friends and senators, Lockwood and 10 men were admitted to practice before the Supreme Court on March 8, 1879. The next year she successfully sponsored Samuel R. Lowery, the first black lawyer to gain the same status.
The Equal Rights Party selected Belva Lockwood as candidate for president in 1884. The platform included planks that resonate to this day. These included equal political privileges to all citizens, appointment of women to all levels of government, foreign policy of friendship with other nations and creation of a “high Court of Arbitration” to solve problems of trade. Lockwood supported citizenship for all Native Americans, pensions for Civil War veterans and families, and reform of family law. She secured a few women to run as electors and mounted a campaign tour which went from New York to California. Ballots were different for each party; Lockwood won several thousand votes and later claimed several boxes of her votes were not counted; accurate numbers are not available.
Lockwood continued her law practice, won millions from the government for broken treaties with the Cherokees. She had joined the Universal Peace Union in 1868, and was an officer and chief lobbyist for 40 years. In the early years of the century she was a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Jill Norgren has written the first adult biography of this unique woman who met opposition, ridicule, and scorn with brilliant determination and humor.