Author Talk with Marlene Trestman, Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate

Before there was the Notorious RBG, there was the Audacious Bessie Margolin (b. 1909-d. 1996). Marlene Trestman, Margolin’s biographer, will delve into Margolin’s remarkable life, her legal career in the nation’s capital, and the trail she blazed for countless women lawyers. Trestman will be in conversation with Senior Judge Beryl A. Howell, former Chief Judge, United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Through a life that spanned the 20th century, Supreme Court advocate Bessie Margolin shaped modern American labor policy and opened doors for female lawyers in the nation’s highest courts. She rose from humble beginnings in New Orleans’s Jewish orphanage, where she learned lessons in social justice that shaped her into one of Washington’s most influential attorneys. As a U.S Department of Labor attorney from 1939-1972, boasting law degrees from Tulane and Yale, Margolin made her mark on the biggest issues of her day. She was the only woman on the legal team that kept FDR’s New Deal alive; she shepherded new federal laws to prohibit child labor and require minimum wages; and, after drafting rules for the Nazi war crimes trials following WWII, argued 24 times at the United States Supreme Court (winning 21 of those cases) to protect American workers. However, despite her innumerable successes, her greatest career disappointment was being passed over for a federal judgeship. Regardless, to this day only seven female lawyers have argued in front of the Supreme Court more times than Margolin. In partnership with the Supreme Court Historical Society This event is offered both in person and virtually. For the virtual event, see the museum’s virtual attendance page.