Caroline Burnham Kilgore

Caroline Burnham Kilgore (January 20, 1838–June 29, 1909) was the first woman admitted to the bar in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Kilore was born in Craftsbury, Vermont in 1838. Her father James Burham was a woolen manufacturer while her mother Eliza Arnold Bunham was a former teacher. Kilgore was orphaned at age eleven. She supported herself as a domestic worker and later as a teacher. While working as a teacher, Kilgore continued her education at Craftsbury Academy and Newbury Seminary.

Kilgore taught in Wisconsin before switching her focus to medicine. She enrolled in medical school at the Hygeia-Therapeutic College and completed her M.D. in 1865.

The University of Pennsylvania Law School rejected her application in 1871. She attempted to buy individual tickets to attend lectures. Some time later, she sent her husband to purchase the lecture passes, but the Board of Trustees informed her that even if she attended every required lecture and passed all of the examinations, they would not guarantee that she would earn a diploma. After studying privately, Kilgore asked to take the bar exam in 1873 and 1874, but was refused.

After ten years of lobbying, Kilgore finally became the first female student admitted to the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1881. She graduated in 1883.

She was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1885, and before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1890.

Kilgore was a member of the Citizens' Suffrage Association and tried to vote at city and county elections in 1871. She was ruled against and appealed to the full state supreme court, which affirmed the ruling against her. She published a pamphlet with her argument before the state supreme court, titled Woman Suffrage. The Argument of Carrie S. Burnham, which also included the opinion of the man who originally ruled against her, George Sharswood.

She died in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and was buried at Craftsbury Common Cemetery in Craftsbury, Vermont.