Lena’s handwritten strike through the word stranger was telling. Maybe she’d had a moment of indecision on that score because her “commercial traveller” was in fact someone she knew—not a stranger but an acquaintance, or perhaps a married lover. But her letters revealed nothing about the man’s identity.
The file was a jumble of loose papers in no particular order when I received it, and on my return from London I spent the better part of two weeks combing through its contents and carefully cataloging the documents. Years of work as a public interest attorney preparing for trial without the help of teams of paralegals had honed my organizational skills. Approaching the task as I would any legal case, I had painstakingly organized the documents using color-coded tabs. Chronologically, the next letter was a typed response from the Foundling Hospital back to Lena, dated January 7, 1932:
Dear Madam,
I am in receipt of your application form, but regret to inform you that your case cannot be entertained unless you are able to furnish me with the name of the man you allege to be the father of your child, the address where he lived or worked when you knew him and some corroboration to your story.
Yours faithfully,
Secretary
As I read the typewritten letter, with its detached tone and seeming indifference to the plight of a distressed mother, I imagined Lena in her bed at Dulwich Hospital, possibly alone and almost definitely fearful. Perhaps she was clutching the child who would one day be my mother as she read this discouraging response. But the following letter in my chronologically organized folder gave me a hint of Lena’s character. Just three days later, she tried again:
Dear Sir,
Thanking you for your letter of Thursdays date. I note that you cannot accept my application under the circumstances.
Would you kindly give permission for an interview, I should then be able to give a better and further description of details of my case. I feel sure would not be rejected, awaiting your reply.
I am,
Yours respectfully,
Lena Weston
Her persistence paid off, and on January 25 she received the following reply:
Dear Madam,
Referring to your application, will you please attend at these Offices tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon at 3.30 o’clock to be interviewed by the Committee.
Please do not bring the child with you.
Yours faithfully,
Secretary
“Please do not bring the child with you.” The last line of the letter spoke volumes about the type of interview Lena could expect at the hands of the “Committee” of governors who would ultimately make the decision to admit or deny her child. The governors who’d been given the power to manage the Foundling Hospital and shape the future of the mothers and children who came before them would not be swayed by an apple-cheeked infant. As they decided which children would be admitted, they would cast judgment solely upon the mothers.
By design, the committee of governors was comprised of men of wealth and influence, many of them of noble birth. Notably missing from their ranks were any women, though, as I would later learn, women had been key to the hospital’s founding. A plan to allow them to formally participate in the governance of the institution was proposed, but ultimately rejected, since women were “excluded by Custom from the Management of publick Business.”9 Instead, only men would decide the fate of thousands of mothers and their children—determining not only who would be admitted but also how they would be raised and educated, and even the methods used to punish them. Almost two centuries would pass before a woman would sit among their ranks.
I was no stranger to inequality, having spent much of my career as an attorney in the South, litigating high-profile cases, often in small rural towns. To succeed, I’d had to navigate a world dominated by men—the federal judge who addressed only the male lawyers during an in-chambers hearing, the former attorney general who would speak to me only through his female secretary, opposing counsel who described me as a bit “too strong” in advocating on behalf of my client (a trait generally admired in male litigators). But these men and their underestimation of my skills had inspired me to advocate with a deepened sense of purpose, to be more outspoken, and to take any opportunity to challenge norms I viewed as antiquated and unfair.
It was a trait that often got me in trouble.
I was seven when I first challenged a man—and he was at least six times my age. Mr. Nakamoto was a parent who shared carpool duty with my mother, ferrying me and his daughter back and forth from the violin recitals that were a regular part of the Suzuki music curriculum.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked us one afternoon.
“The president!” I boldly proclaimed as I climbed through a window into the jump seat in the back of his tan station wagon.
“Why, you can’t be the president, Justine! You’re a girl!”
“You’re wrong,” I countered. “I can!”
He continued to school me on my gender’s limited prospects, and I continued to argue back without hesitation until he gave up, no match for my willfulness. I folded my arms in defiance and glared at him as he closed the back gate of the wagon. He never asked me any questions again.
It was that same brazenness that fueled me to challenge a group of male attorneys two decades later, between my second and third years of law school, during a friendly game of softball. I was serving as a summer clerk for a prestigious law firm in Nashville. If all went well, they would offer me a job upon my graduation.
It was my turn at bat, and I approached home plate.
“Take first,” instructed the umpire as he pointed his glove toward first base. Puzzled, I was informed of a long-standing league rule: if the pitcher walks a male batter who precedes a female in the lineup, the female batter automatically “gets a walk” to first base. The rule was designed to prevent savvy pitchers from walking a strong and skilled male batter in order to strike out the next batter—the weak and inept female.
My male teammates, the lawyers who would determine whether I was worthy of employment with their firm, urged me to take the base. I hesitated, but not for long.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I retorted as I took my place at bat, ignoring their groans. I can still hear that crack as the bat made contact, hurtling the ball into the outfield. I did little to hide my smirk as I breezed past first base and took my place on second.
While I eventually made it to home plate, I didn’t get the job offer.
I had been so proud of my performance that day, viewing myself as a trailblazer of sorts—a regular Susan B. Anthony! But reading about Lena’s struggles, I felt foolish, the feather in my cap won so easily and with so little risk. While the law firm’s rejection stung, I had other options. Lena did not. Nor did she have the bulwark of higher education, as I did, or the help of an advocate. On the afternoon of January 26, 1932, she pleaded her case alone before a panel of the wealthiest and most highly educated men she had ever encountered. The meeting took place in a wood-paneled room on the second floor of the administrative offices of the Foundling Hospital at 40 Brunswick Square, an oblong space that no longer exists in its original form. The walls were adorned with fine art, the molded ceilings decorated with elaborate plasterwork. A crystal chandelier hung in the center of the room. A large fireplace provided warmth for the governors who sat along one side of a long table, perhaps in high-backed chairs like the one I’d seen in the Foundling Museum and recognized from my childhood home.