August 31, 1897 — Kansas City Journal
“A Compromise Attorney.
Miss Katherine May Wood, of Omaha, has set at naught the speculation and flippancy directed toward those women who have defied conventionality by taking up the law as a profession. Instead of finding the pursuit of this calling inharmonious with her sensibilities, she has found a way to make her feminine qualities distinctively assertive, to the degree of giving her a positive advantage over masculine competitors.
Miss Wood has made a specialty of divorce cases, but, with a dignity and shrewdness that do her much credit, has declined to take any men clients. Since a large majority of the divorce suits brought in the country are instituted by women, she at once becomes the champion of her sex and reaches out after the only line of legal business in which women clients predominate.
The fact that more of her cases are settled out of court than by judicial decisions speaks well for her heart, although it is not probably that she indulges sentiment at the wholesale expense of fees in such settlements.
At any rate, the fair pleader, through her success as a peacemaker where peace is expedient and possible, and as a prosecutor when prosecution is advisable or necessary, has secured a corner on the divorce business of Omaha’s women.
There are plenty of lawyers who have made reputations by their success in effecting marital separations by process of law. Perhaps the forte of the woman lawyer is to be that of a domestic peacemaker, a sort of skilled adjuster, whose services may be commanded for the restoration of speaking relations between husbands and wives who have lost the art, as an expert accountant restores order in a set of ill kept books.
The energy and success of women as matchmakers would suggest that they might be particularly useful as match preservers.”
August 31, 1900 — Inter Ocean
“KATE KANE ANGRY
Woman Lawyer Has Three Pawnbrokers Arrested — CLASHES WITH COURT — Trouble Due to Husband Pawning His Clothes — Claims That She Owns the Garments — is Fined for Contempt by Justice Martin”
“Vincenso Rossi, husband of Kate Kane Rossi, the woman police-court lawyer, pawned his clothing Wednesday, and when his spouse learned of his action yesterday she swore out warrants for the arrest of the pawnshop-keepers.
Mrs. Rossi was ‘mad clear through,’ and this means a good deal, for she weighs upward of 225 pounds. After she had sworn out warrants for E. Spingold, Adolph Gastman, and Jake Miller, the pawnshop people, she visited Justice Martin’s court. The justice had just learned of the warrants being issued for the pawnshop men, and he asked Mrs. Rossi to state her complaint. She informed the Judge that he would do well to mind his own business.
‘Well, just as you say,’ replied the magistrate, as he moved his ink bottle from his desk. ‘I have been informed that you charge that your husband’s clothes were bought by you, and hence the pawnshop-keepers are guilty of receiving stolen property. If I had known the particulars a few minutes ago, I would never have issued the warrants. They should not be arrested on such a flimsy charge. Why, I don’t —”
‘Shut your mouth,’ broke in the female lawyer. ‘I don’t want my business affairs aired by you. I have never received a square deal in this court. If you would mind —.’
‘Five dollars and costs for contempt of court,’ broke in Justice Martin in turn, while the habitues of the courtroom began to cast anxious glances at the exits.
The fine had no effect on the belligerent woman. She had to have her say, and she brushed bailiffs and policemen aside while she ‘tongue-lashed’ the magistrate. Every time she waved her massive hands the crowd slunk toward the windows and doors. Policemen who have made records in arresting desperadoes stepped into the ‘bull-pen,’ and Sam Arrant, the magistrate’s clerk, crawled under a desk.
But the storm passed, and Mrs. Rossi, without paying any attention to the $5 fine, walked out of the courtroom, still muttering.
Adolph Gastman, one of the partners in the firm of E. Spingold & Co., pawnbrokers, said last night:
‘Mrs. Rossi’s husband came in here Wednesday with some clothing, and asked for a loan on it. We examined the garments, and offered to advance $4. He wanted $6, and after some argument we loaned him that sum. He lives at No. 185 Clark street, but he gave his address at No. 199 Clark street, and his name as James instead of Vincenso Rossi. Yesterday Mrs. Rossi came in with fire in her eye. She held the pawnticket in her hand, and wanted to know what I meant by receiving stolen property. I replied that I would talk to her if she would show me the pawnticket. She refused, but I saw its number and looked it up in our books. I then explained that Mr. Rossi had brought in some men’s clothing and had received the loan. She said that the clothes had been paid for by her. I asked her if she wore men’s clothes, and she got wild. Finally she turned around and left the store.’
‘About 11 o’clock she returned and wanted to know the names of the men in our store. I gave her my own name, the name of Mr. Spingold and Mr. Miller. She then asked again for the clothing, but I refused to give it to her and advised her to take out a writ of replevin if she wanted to recover any stolen property in the legal way. She declared that she would have us all arrested. Our case will come up in the morning, and of course it will be thrown out of court.’
The policemen at the Harrison street police station walked on tiptoe yesterday when they learned that Kane Kane Rossi was on the warpath. A few years ago the woman lawyer had the police sitting up nights to think of schemes to avoid her anger. She appeared often in the police courts defending Italians, and in the heat of argument she frequently depopulated the temples of justice. Several years ago she married Rossi. According to her own story, their domestic path has not been strewn with roses.
August 31, 1908 — Fort Wayne Daily News
“Lady Lawyers; Miss McCartney Would Have Every Woman Know Blackstone
“Every woman should have a knowledge of the law; every woman should study it, even though she may have no intention of ever taking up its practice, declares Miss E. F. McCartney, one of America’s first women lawyers. ‘Every day women suffer financial loss through ignorance of the law,’ she says.”
August 31, 1909 — Pittston Gazette
“Suffrage Cookbook.
That favorite argument of the ‘antis’ that suffrage is likely to masculinize women and that the suffragists are not domestic loving creatures is being refuted in a brand new way. The suffragists of the state of Washington have issued a cookbook that provides recipes equally good for attracting the mind and the appetite. It is a big volume and bears the simple title of ‘The Washington Women’s Cookbook,’ but it is much more than this name would indicate. Of course it is bound in the suffrage colors — two yellow banners on a white ground, one with the legend ‘Votes for Women’ and the other ‘Good Things to Eat,’ to show that they are not incompatible.
There are about 700 recipes between the covers, each declared to be a potent argument in itself and each contributed by some suffragist of Washington. Scattered through the volume there are also many bright quotations in favor of equal rights, and at the end there are a little history of the suffrage movement and an explanation of ‘How Washington Women Lost the Ballot.’ This last is an interesting bit of political history written by a woman lawyer of Seattle, who charges the opponents of the cause with having manufactured and used bogus ballots . . .”
August 31, 1930 — Richmond Times Dispatch
“Women Bring Cultural Influence to Professions — Charges of Masculine Die-Hards Quashed by Facts, by Susan Peters.”
“The professions, which once turned a cool shoulder on women, now spread out the welcome mat and bid the female of the species enter.
Judge Frederic E. Crane of the New York Court of Appeals tells 300 women lawyers assembled for the Phi Delta Delta conference in Brooklyn that their mental attainments are not only equal to those of men in their profession, but that they have given to legal procedure that moral and cultural influence of which it was in need.
All charges by masculine die-hards that the professions rob women of their greatest charm — femininity — are squashed by the fact the conference terminated its day with a fashion show in which young women students of Fordham Law School acted as models. No matter what ‘cases’ women try, the case of ‘new clothes’ against old clothes will always hold first place on the calendar.”
Montana's Early Women Lawyers: Trail-blazing, Big Sky Sisters-in-Law 