;PARA 3PAR@ ` +TEXT ` Lockwood, Belva Ann Bennett1830╨1917lawyer and reformerBorn at Royalton, Niagara County, New York, on October 24, 1830, Belva Bennett attended country schools until she was fifteen and then taught in them until her marriage in November 1848 to Uriah H. McNall, a local farmer who died in 1853. Belva McNall then resumed teaching and continued her own education. She graduated from Genesee College (forerunner of Syracuse University) in 1857. After college she continued as a teacher in various towns in upper New York state until 1866, when she moved to Washington, D.C. There she taught for a year and then, while operating her own private school, took up the study of law. In March 1868 she married Ezekiel Lockwood, a former minister and dentist who took over her school. After Columbian College (now George Washington University), Georgetown University, and Howard University had each refused her admission, she was enrolled in the new National University Law School in 1871. She graduated in 1873 and in the same year was admitted to the District of Columbia bar. Offended by the legal and economic discrimination against women in American society, Lockwood became one of the most effective advocates of women╒s rights of her time. Her law practice dealt primarily with pension claims against the government, but her work in Washington gave her the opportunity to lobby on behalf of legislation favorable to women. She drafted a bill for equal pay for equal work by women in government employment, and the bill was enacted into law in 1872. After being denied admission to the Supreme Court in 1876 she singlehandedly lobbied through Congress enabling legislation and in March 1879 became the first woman to be admitted to practice before the Court. She gained national prominence as a lecturer on women╒s rights and was active in the affairs of various suffrage organizations. In 1884 she was nominated to run for the presidency on the ticket of the National Equal Rights party, a small California group. Despite criticism and even ridicule she conducted a dignified campaign on a broad platform of reform and won 4,149 votes in 6 states. A second campaign in 1888 was less effective. She was chosen by the Department of State to be a delegate to the International Congress of Charities, Correction, and Philanthropy at Geneva in 1896, and she attended peace congresses in Europe in 1889, 1906, 1908, and 1911. She took a prominent part in the campaign headed by Ellen S. Mussey that secured for the married women of the district equal property rights and equal guardianship of children in 1896. When the statehood bills for Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona came before Congress in 1903, she prepared amendments granting suffrage to women in the proposed new states. She held office in several reform organizations, including the Universal Peace Union, the International Peace Bureau, the Nobel Peace Prize nominating committee, the League of Women Voters, and the National and American Woman Suffrage associations. Lockwood died on May 19, 1917, in Washington, D.C. ╓styl `
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