Florence Ellinwood Allen

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Florence Ellinwood Allen (March 23, 1884 - September 12, 1966) was an American judge. She was the first woman to serve on a state supreme court and the first to serve as a federal judge. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, but raised in Cleveland, Allen attended Case Western Reserve University and joined the Sigma Psi sorority. She thereafter received a law degree from New York University. Though Cuyahoga County Democratic chairman Burr Gongwer opposed her appointment as an assistant prosecutor, she nonetheless served first bringing cases before the grand jury. After appearing before the grand jury, she began to prosecute cases in open court. After Women's Suffrage was enacted, there were women's groups that worked for the election of female judges. At this time, Cleveland, Ohio had several female judges sitting on various benches. Allen sought election as an independent to the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County and won. In 1921, she was the first woman to preside over a murder trial with women sitting on the jury and the first woman to sentence a man to death.

In the next election, women's groups sought her election to the Ohio Supreme Court. When elected to the Ohio Supreme Court in 1922, she became the first woman to sit on a state supreme court. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Allen to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1934, she became the first woman to serve on an Article III federal court. Supporters sought to have her appointed to the United States Supreme Court during Harry S. Truman's presidency, but Truman was opposed to a woman sitting on the highest court of the land. Finally, in 1959, Allen became the first woman to be chief judge of a United States Court of Appeals. Later in life, she wrote an autobiography called To Do Justly.