Dora Sandoe Bachman (October 8, 1869 – January 1, 1930) was an American lawyer, community leader, and suffragist. She was the first woman graduate of the Ohio State University College of Law, in 1893. She was vice-president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association.

Dora Sandoe Bachman
Dora Sandoe Bachman portrait; an older white woman
Born
Lydora Olivia Sandoe

October 8, 1869
Tiffin, Ohio
DiedJanuary 1, 1930 (age 60)
Columbus, Ohio
Occupation(s)Lawyer, suffragist, school official

Early life and education edit

Dora Sandoe was born in Tiffin, Ohio,[1] and raised in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Henry Harrison Sandoe and Eliza M. Barton Sandoe. Her father was a pastor in the Reformed Church.[2] She attended Pleasantville Collegiate Institute and Curry University.[3] In 1893, she became the first woman graduate of the Ohio State University College of Law,[4][5] and the seventh woman admitted to the bar in Ohio.[6][7]

Career edit

Bachman taught school as a young woman.[2] She and her husband shared a law practice in Columbus, where she specialized in family law.[8] She was the first woman elected to the Columbus Board of Education, on which she held a seat from 1910 to 1917.[9] She served as board president in 1913, the first woman to be a school board president in an Ohio city.[2] She ran unsuccessfully for a judgeship in 1920.[10] She was attorney for the Florence Crittenden Home in Columbus.[1] She was founding vice-president of the Columbus Home and School Association.[11] She chaired the legislative committee of the Ohio branch of the National Congress of Mothers.[12]

Bachman was vice-president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association,[13][14] during the presidency of Harriet Taylor Upton. She drafted the defeated 1912 Ohio suffrage referendum, and a field worker on the campaign for the 1914 Ohio suffrage referendum, which also failed. In 1913 she was part of the Ohio contingent marching in the large pro-suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. She served as a legal advisor to Alice Paul in the formation of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage.[4] "Suffrage is but one step in the evolution of woman," she told a 1917 audience. "Economic independence is the next step."[13] She became head of the Social Hygiene Committee of the Ohio League of Women Voters in 1920.

Bachman was president of the Columbus Cremation Society, and a member of the Columbus Women's Newspaper Club.[8] She spoke at the YWCA in Akron in 1914, on "Woman as a Citizen".[15] She spoke to the Columbus chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta in 1917, on "Ohio Laws Pertaining to Women".[16] She spoke to the Columbus Woman's Homeopathic Society in 1920, on "The Causes of Delinquency" among working girls.[17]

Personal life edit

Sandoe married fellow lawyer Jacob Leo Bachman. One of their three sons died in infancy in 1904.[4] Her husband died in 1920,[18] and she died in 1930, at the age of 60, in Columbus.[7]

References edit

  1. ^ a b "Mrs. Dora S. Bachman, of Columbus, Ohio". The Lawyer & Banker and Southern Bench & Law Review. 6: 373. December 1913 – via 6.
  2. ^ a b c "Former Teacher of Butler County is Head of School Board in Capital of Ohio". Butler Citizen. 1913-01-13. pp. 1, 2. Retrieved 2023-08-30 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "Mrs. Bachman, '93, Leader". The Ohio State University Monthly. 7 (10): 19. June 1916.
  4. ^ a b c Cizek, Natalie. "Biographical Sketch of Dora Sandoe Bachman". Alexander Street Documents. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  5. ^ "Class Reunions During the Commencement Season". Ohio State University Monthly. 9 (9–10): 29. June–July 1918.
  6. ^ "'We Are Seven'; The Lady Attorney Who Visited Chillicothe Yesterday in the Interest of Lewis Hill". Chillicothe Gazette. 1894-06-16. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ a b "Mrs. Dora S. Bachman Dies". The Cincinnati Enquirer. 1930-01-02. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b "Ohio Woman Practices Law But is Devoted Mother and Wife as Well". Muskogee Times-Democrat. 1907-09-26. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-08-30 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ Hauser, Elizabeth J. (1910-01-10). "Women Who Serve on Ohio School Board". Palladium-Item. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Brilliant Woman Lawyer to Speak". The News-Messenger. 1920-09-27. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ "County Parent-Teachers Group is 17 Years Old". Columbus Evening Dispatch. 1928-09-23. p. 58. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Regret Governor's Action". The Cincinnati Enquirer. 1921-05-28. p. 16. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ a b "Financial Troubles Cause Most Divorces Declares Columbus Woman in Address Here". The Marion Star. 1915-05-07. p. 15. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "Woman's Suffrage Lecture in Marion; Mrs. Dora Sandoe Bachman is to Speak Here". The Marion Star. 1915-05-04. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "Mrs. Dora Sandoe Bachman to Speak to Woman's Council". The Akron Beacon Journal. 1914-01-06. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-08-30 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ Taft, Mabel M. (May 1917). "Chapter News: Columbus Alumnae". Kappa Alpha Theta. 31 (4): 451.
  17. ^ "The Columbus Woman's Homeopathic Society, 1919-1920". Central Journal of Homoeopathy. 1 (4): 17. June 1920.
  18. ^ "Ohio Socialist Leader is Dead". The Tribune. 1920-07-08. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.