FOND DU LAC – In September 1886, Kate Pier and her daughter Kate Hamilton Pier entered a classroom at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For girls, being inside the area turned into a rarity. Men filled it, just like the sphere the women have been trying to input: law. The Pier girls were not the first to be lawyers in Wisconsin. That changed into achieved 12 years earlier through Lavinia Goodell of Janesville. Goodell paved the way for the girls, as she fought for the passage of a regulation making it illegal to discriminate on gender in regulation exercise. As a result, she became the first woman to be admitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in step with the Wisconsin Women Making History.
Despite this, the feat of the Pier women and those who observed became no less groundbreaking. Pier and Hamilton Pier graduated from the 2-year direction in less than a year. By 1891, daughters Caroline and Harriet Hamilton Pier had earned their stages, making their family the primary 4 of eight women lawyers in Wisconsin, in keeping with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin files. They took historical positions from their posts, recommended ladies’ rights, and encouraged the passage of laws — greater than 15 years before they’d have the right to vote at the rules.
Born in Vermont in 1845, Pier and her mother and father moved to Fond du Lac when she turned eight, in line with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin data. At a younger age, Pier started learning the fine details of commercial enterprise lifestyles from her father, John Hamilton, as she observed him in his work as a real estate agent, according to the Fond du Lac County Historical Society.
Her formal education was here from the local Fond du Lac faculties. In 1862, she graduated from high school before quickly starting to train in the city of Empire, consistent with the e-book “A Woman of the Century: 1470 Biographical Sketches Accompanied via Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life” with the aid of Frances Elizabeth Willard and Mary Ashton Rice Livermore.
Four years after commencement, she married Colwert Kendall Pier. The first toddler born to white settlers in Fond du Lac’s records, Colwert Kendall Pier, became the city’s primary guy to enlist within the Union Army during the Civil War. But, TODAY, NETWORK-Wisconsin data, he also had a law diploma and income before marriage.
By 1872, their household grew to include three daughters — Kate, Caroline, and Harriet Hamilton Pier — and, after the demise of Pier’s father in 1871, her mother, Mary. With the passing, Pier took care of her dad and mom’s estate — and her father’s business. Her ability attracted others to invite her to help with their subjects, keeping with Willard and Livermore. In operating on each real property and trendy affairs, she dabbled inside the legal nation-states.
While Pier ran the enterprise, her daughters started their training. Kate Hamilton Pier began at the metropolis’s German English Academy before going into the general public colleges, wherein Caroline and Harriet Hamilton Pier, too, had been educated, in keeping with Willard and Livermore.
Mother and daughters visit law school.
With Kate Hamilton Pier’s commencement from excessive college in 1886, talks of going off to law faculty got into play. Her mom, although, was no longer going to permit her to move by way of herself. As properly as trying to make certain her daughter turned into safe in Madison, Pier wanted her kids to start their personal, commercial enterprise profession together with her supervision as “she had started on my own and knew what pioneer enterprise undertakings meant for a lady,” in line with Willard and Livermore. She also noticed an opportunity in school to increase her real property enterprise similarly, said the Fond du Lac County Historical Society. So, when Kate Hamilton Pier enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Law School, Pier did the equal — including the area of expertise to the already rare situation of a girl attending regulation college.
