When a Detroit Free Press journalist interviewed attorney Martha Strickland, the reporter noted her unusual outfit. The divided skirt dress had two “immense pockets, one on each side of the dress” to store legal papers and allow Strickland to “walk along the streets and look like any other woman” without anyone wondering what she was doing with so much paperwork.¹

Strickland made it perfectly clear that her outfit was a “concession to public opinion.”² It was one of the rare times in her life that she made such an effort. She was not one to concede to public opinion or conventional roles out of habit or anything other than her own free choice.

Martha Helen Strickland was born just north of Lansing in Clinton County on March 25, 1853, to Randolph and Mary Ellen Strickland. She was the couple’s first child and the oldest of four girls. In many ways, Martha was the son her father never had, and few people had as great of an impact on her life as he did.

Randolph Strickland was, at various point in his life, a lumberman, teacher, county prosecutor, state senator, Michigan’s Civil War draft superintendent, provost marshal for the 6th Congressional District, and U.S. representative. A supporter of women’s rights and suffrage, he saw no reason why his oldest daughter could not follow in his footsteps if she so desired. In fact, when he was elected to Congress in 1869 as the nation was still reeling from the aftermath of the Civil War and the ineffective Andrew Johnson presidential administration, he took 16-year-old Martha with him to Washington, D.C., as his private secretary.³

It was an eventful time to be in D.C. Former Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had been elected president and the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — guaranteeing the right to vote to all citizens regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude — was ratified. Four former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, and Wyoming and Utah territories gave women the right to vote. After two years in the nation’s capital, the Stricklands left D.C. just before Martha turned 18.

Upon returning home, Martha Strickland began to “read law” under her father’s direction and planned to enroll in the University of Michigan Law School shortly thereafter; the law school had admitted and graduated its first female student, and she was ready to be the next. Unfortunately, a health issue forced her to shelve law school. Instead, the 20-year-old Strickland went on the lecture circuit, speaking on women’s rights.⁴

At some point during her travels, Strickland met Leo Miller, a “free love and temperance apostle”⁵ from New York. Once again, she did not concede to public opinion; instead, she caused a scandal. The couple entered “into a business partnership, under the name of Miller & Strickland,” a conjugal contract.⁶ Of all her life choices, this one went the most against public opinion and caused the biggest scandal. As the couple noted:

[T]his simple form of conjugal union we are constrained to adopt from the deepest conscientious convictions of right and duty; and we sincerely regret that condition of society, which, if we would be true to ourselves, makes it necessary for us to oppose the opinions of a majority of our fellow-creatures; disregarding the laws and customs which they assume to make for the control of an affection between the sexes, which we believe is, and of divine right ought to be free.⁷

It was a bold decision for the 19th century and the resulting public reaction was not unexpected. Strickland’s parents were terribly embarrassed — when the Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel published news of the “civil and conjugal union” with Miller, the end of the article included a note from her parents asking for “the sympathy of our friends in our sorrow, for the course pursued by our poor, deluded, misguided and insane daughter.”⁸ Some critics blamed the Stricklands’ suffragist views; perhaps “but for the teachings of the parent [Martha] would never have taken” such a step.⁹

It got worse. Miller and Strickland were arrested in the summer of 1876 for “lewdly and lasciviously cohabiting together without being married.”¹⁰ By that time, Strickland was pregnant — their son, Edwin Miller-Strickland, was born shortly thereafter.¹¹ Eventually, Miller deserted Strickland and the conjugal contract was dissolved; it turned out that Leo had a wife in the eastern U.S., and he would later be arrested for public drunkenness.¹² The newspapers agreed that Miller received the better part of the deal as Strickland was the better character and a “very strong-minded woman, given to asserting her rights.”¹³

Strickland returned to Clinton County, settling in St. Johns with her son. With her health improved, she enrolled in law school, graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1883. That same year, the American Law Review published her paper titled “The Common Law and Statutory Right of Women to Office.”¹⁴ About the same time, newspapers published reminders of the Miller-Strickland marriage alliance scandal.¹⁵ Perhaps others, after enduring such a scandal, would have decided to live a quiet life and maybe even give public opinion and established norms passing consideration.

Not Strickland.

She continued her lectures, speaking on a variety of topics: women’s suffrage, parliamentary law,¹⁶ and unsatisfactory compensation received by teachers and the necessity for better pay and training.¹⁷ She spoke for the “need of woman in politics.”¹⁸ She was hopeful and idealistic: female enfranchisement would result in arbitration replacing war and moral reeducation replacing imprisonment.¹⁹

Strickland also practiced law, initially setting up an office in St. Johns and working as an assistant prosecuting attorney before moving to Detroit. She had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously and earn a living, noting that when she won a case:

“nothing [was] said about it; but if I lose — as all lawyers must do at times — it appears in print, and prejudices new clients against me as a woman lawyer.”²⁰

Strickland’s lasting achievement is her status as the first female lawyer to practice before the Michigan Supreme Court, which made news across the state: “for the first time in the history of the Supreme Court a female attorney” argued a case.²¹ Her performances before the Court were acknowledged as “concise, clear and logical.”²² People who supported women’s suffrage were directed to take note of Strickland as a positive example of what enfranchisement could mean.²³

Perhaps if Strickland had started her career in an alternative fashion — first attending law school and then going out on the lecture circuit — she would have been a lifelong lawyer with a flourishing practice. But the law wasn’t her first love; she was a lecturer and a teacher, and she continued to travel across the country speaking her mind. As one might expect, her presence attracted the attention of the newspapers, whose reporters followed her. Sometimes they highlighted the wrong things, like writing that the “young and charming and graceful” Strickland was plump with deep blue eyes.²⁴ But she was used to it and before long she was known as an expert in parliamentary law and women’s rights.

By the time Martha died in 1935, she’d been labeled as a congressional secretary; a lady lawyer; a lecturer; a “poor, deluded, misguided and insane person;”²⁵ and a woman of “rare legal ability.”²⁶ In spite of all those labels, she had never been boring and rarely conceded to public opinion, sometimes at great personal cost.