GAIL LAUGHLIN

 

Gail LAUGHLIN, attorney-at-law and lecturer of San Francisco, is one of the most remarkable women of the West, and one of her most remarkable traits is that through her public conflicts and triumphs she has retained her charity, her tenderness and womanliness.  For years, she was a worthy pioneer in the great movement to give to women equal rights before the law and equal opportunities to labor in all vocations, demonstrating by her life work what women can do in activities hitherto usually restricted to men.  She is a woman of learning, genius, industry and high character, and is a noble refutation of the oft-times expressed belief that the entrance of woman into public life tends to lessen her distinctive character.

 

Gail LAUGHLIN was born in Maine, a daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (STUART) LAUGHLIN, and from the former, a native of Ireland, she inherits the brilliant wit of those from the Emerald Isle.  Her mother was born in Connecticut.  The parents had seven children.  The father was for years engaged in the iron business, and died in 1876, but the mother survived him many years, passing away in 1899.

 

Even as a girl Gail LAUGHLIN displayed unusual ability, and made such progress in the public schools that her teachers encouraged her in her ambition to strive for a higher education, and she went through Wesley College with honors, and was graduated from the law department of Cornell University, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and immediately thereafter entered upon a general practice of her profession in New York City, where she remained from 1898 until 1902.  During this period she was extremely active in the suffrage movement, and has learned in its behalf in practically every state in the Union.  From 1902 to 1903 she was in California in behalf of the movement, and then, going to Denver, Colorado, she formed a friendship, which was to last until it was terminated by death, with the noted leader, Doctor SPERRY, a daughter of the well known “49er,” Austin SPERRY   These two self-sacrificing and capable women effected a great change in popular sentiment in Colorado, and Gail LAUGHLIN continued to devote herself to the cause until 1914, when she located permanently at San Francisco, and once more engaged in the practice of law.  While she is still in the very prime of usefulness, measured by the events in which she has participated and the good she has accomplished, her career appears a long one.  Throughout it all she has commanded to a wonderful extent the respect of eminent lawyers, jurists, statesmen and the public at large, while she is the idol of the suffrage party.  The facts of her life present a bright and inspiring record to women and men alike, and stands as an enduring monument to the ability of her sex.

 

Always a strong advocate of woman’s clubs, she belongs to a number of them; is an ex-president of the National Confederation of Business and Professional Woman’s clubs; ex-president  of the Civic clubs of the State of California, and is a director of several of the leading woman’s clubs.  She and Doctor SPERRY maintained a home together until the latter died, and each gained much from this intimate friendship.  As a lecturer Gail LAUGHLIN has shown the close student in her mental composition, balanced by a keen, logical and practical mind, and mellowed by the imagination of a poet for those higher things not of earth.