BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Supreme Court Building -- Exhibit: Sandra Day O’Connor, First Woman on the Supreme Court

DC -- Supreme Court Building -- Exhibit: Sandra Day O’Connor, First Woman on the Supreme Court:

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Description of Pictures: Sandra Day O’Connor, First Woman on the Supreme Court:
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, and served from 1981 until 2006. Beginning with her childhood growing up on her family’s ranch, the exhibition recalls her life before joining the Supreme Court, her service and accomplishments on the Court, and her continuing legacy off the Court.
Following her retirement from the Court on January 31, 2006, Justice O’Connor has continued her judicial service by hearing cases in the United States Courts of Appeals. In recognition of her lifetime accomplishments, President Barack Obama awarded Justice O’Connor with the Nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on August 12, 2009. This medal, along with portraits, sculpture and personal items such as her Bench chair and judicial robe, help illuminate her story.

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[1] SCXOCO_130208_01.JPG	[2] SCXOCO_130208_07.JPG	[3] SCXOCO_130208_15.JPG
[4] SCXOCO_130208_19.JPG	[5] SCXOCO_130208_25.JPG	[6] SCXOCO_130208_31.JPG
[7] SCXOCO_130208_39.JPG	[8] SCXOCO_130208_40.JPG	[9] SCXOCO_130208_47.JPG
[10] SCXOCO_130208_52.JPG	[11] SCXOCO_130208_58.JPG	[12] SCXOCO_130208_65.JPG
[13] SCXOCO_130208_70.JPG	[14] SCXOCO_130208_76.JPG	[15] SCXOCO_130214_01.JPG
[16] SCXOCO_130214_05.JPG	[17] SCXOCO_130214_12.JPG	[18] SCXOCO_130214_26.JPG
[19] SCXOCO_130214_37.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SCXOCO_130208_07.JPG: Sandra Day O'Connor: First Woman on the Supreme Court: Growing Up on the Lazy B: Sandra Day O'Connor's sense of independence, self-reliance, and pragmatism may be attributed to her classic western upbringing. She was born on March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas, to Ada Mae and Harry Day, but she spent her formative years on the Lazy B, a 198,000-acre cattle ranch straddling the southern Arizona and New Mexico border. In their memoir, Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest, O'Connor and her brother, Alan Day, lovingly recall how life on a cattle ranch without electricity or indoor plumbing posed many challenges, but instilled in them a strong work ethic. Her parents enjoyed reading and emphasized a well-rounded education, sending young Sandra to live with her maternal grandmother in El Paso to attend Radford School for Girls. The future Justice, however, was often homesick and always looked forward to returning to the Lazy B, where she rode with the cowboys, branded cattle, and fired a .22 caliber rifle. Many years later, she would be inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Defying the Odds: While completing high school, Sandra Day applied to Stanford University, where she was accepted into the 1946 freshman class at the age of sixteen. Sparked by her experience living and working on the Lazy B, she elected a course in economics and received her degree in 1950. Inspired by one of her professors, she enrolled in Stanford Law School as one of five women in her class. Among her male colleagues was William H. Rehnquist, with whom she later served on the Supreme Court for almost a quarter of a century. Her academic success in law school was marked by her induction into the Order of the Coif, a prestigious legal honorary society, as well as her service on the Board of Editors of the Stanford Law Review. While working on the Law Review, Sandra Day met her future husband, John J. O'Connor III. "Beware of proofreading over a glass of beer," she once said. "It can result in unexpected alliances."
2. SCXOCO_130208_15.JPG: Hitting the Glass Ceiling: Although graduating near the top of her class in 1952, no law firm in California was willing to hire O'Connor as a lawyer due to her gender, not an uncommon experience among women lawyers of her generation. The only job offer she received was as a legal secretary at a Los Angeles-based firm. She persisted in her job hunt, however, and eventually contacted the County Attorney for San Mateo County, California. He told her his office was not funded to hire another deputy. "I wrote him a long letter," recounted O'Connor, "explaining all the reasons why I thought I could do things that would be useful to him in the office." She offered to work for nothing if that was necessary. As a result of her letter, she was offered a position as a deputy county attorney. While her husband was stationed in Frankfort, Germany, with the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, she served as a civilian attorney with the United States Army Quartermaster Corps. The O'Connors moved back to the United States in 1957, settling in Phoenix, Arizona, where she was admitted to the bar and started a neighborhood law office with a colleague in a shopping center. The O'Connors' three sons, Scott, Brian, and Jay, were all born within the next six years. With the birth of her second son, she left the law practice to concentrate on raising her family, but became very involved in local politics and community service. From Statehouse to Courthouse: In 1965, O'Connor returned to work full-time as an assistant state attorney general, while continuing to play an active role in Republican Party politics. When a seat in the Arizona State Senate became vacant in 1969, she was appointed to fill it. She was twice reelected, quickly rising in prominence. In 1972, she became the first woman in the Nation to hold the post of majority leader in a state legislature. As a legislator, O'Connor worked towards changing various state laws that discriminated against women. She helped repeal a 1913 Arizona statute prohibiting women from working more than eight hours a day, which had been used to prevent women from seeking and keeping jobs. In addition, O'Connor sponsored legislation giving women equal responsibility in managing property jointly held with their spouses. In 1975, she ran successfully for trial judge on the Maricopa County Supreme Court, a position she held until 1979 when Governor Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, appointed her to the Arizona Court of Appeals. This appointment was made possible by a new system of merit selection for judges, which she had helped shepherd to approval by Arizona voters. Committed to strengthening the rle of women in the American judicial system, she supported the foundation of the National Association of Women Judges, established the same year.
3. SCXOCO_130208_39.JPG: Gavel used by Judge O'Connor while serving on the Arizona Court of Appeals.
4. SCXOCO_130208_40.JPG: "Let's play Supreme Court. You be the old guys and I'll be Sandra Day O'Connor."
5. SCXOCO_130208_52.JPG: Her Honor: Already a trailblazer having served in the three branches of state government, O'Connor was about to make an even more profound mark on history. During his 1980 Presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan made a commitment to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court of the United States. When Associate Justice Potter Stewart retired in 1981, President Reagan fulfilled that promise by nominating O'Connor, noting that she was a "person for all seasons." The Senate unanimously confirmed her appointment on September 21, 1981, and four days later she took her seat on the Bench. One of the people who ushered O'Connor through the nomination process was Attorney General William French Smith, who had been a member of the law firm that offered her a secretarial position nearly 30 years before. During her nearly 25 years on the Court, Justice O'Connor was often at the center of the Court's deliberations. While personally disdaining the label "swing vote," O'Connor frequently found herself referred to as such by the press because her pragmatic approach to judging sometimes resulted in her vote being cast among the majority in 5-4 decisions. She authored 676 opinions in her career, 301 of which were the Opinion of the Court, touching on a wide range of issues. "Being a member of the Court," she once said, "is a little like walking through fresh concrete. We look back and see our footprints in those opinions that we've written and they tend to harden after us."
6. SCXOCO_130208_70.JPG: Accomplishments Off the Court: Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the Supreme Court January 31, 2006, but in many respects she remains as active in retirement as she was while on the Court. She continues her judicial service by hearing cases in the United States Courts of Appeals. In addition, she is a tireless advocate for judicial independence and the Rule of Law throughout the world. She served on the Iraq Study Group as is a board member for the American Bar Association's Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI). Among her other activities, she serves as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary, as a Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, and as a board member of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the National Constitution Center, and the William H. Rehnquist Center. Most recently, she recruited experts in law, history, education, and technology to develop "iCivics," a web-based education project aimed at engaging middle school students in civics (visit www.icivics.org). In recognition of her lifetime accomplishments, President Barack Obama awarded her the Nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on August 12, 2009 (see medal in case to right).
7. SCXOCO_130214_26.JPG: Bar Admission Certificate presented to "Mrs. John Jay O'Connor," admitting her as an Attorney and Counselor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 1953.
8. SCXOCO_130214_37.JPG: Bar Admission Certificate presented to Sandra Day O'Connor, admitting her as an Attorney and Counselor of the Supreme Court of the State of Arizona, 1957.
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