On November 8, 1917, Mary Tiera Farrow and 20 other female lawyers formed the Women's Bar Association of Kansas City. 

Farrow was one of the few women in the United States who successfully practiced law in the early 1900s despite the discrimination that women faced in the legal field and society more generally. After having been denied the professional benefits of joining any existing bar association, Farrow led a group of 20 women in establishing their own bar in Kansas City. It was just one of many pioneering acts that Farrow undertook for herself and for women's rights more generally.

Tiera Farrow was born in Indiana in 1880 and moved with her family to Delphos, Kansas, in 1885. Her personal hero was Abraham Lincoln, who had been a lawyer before he entered politics. From an early age, Farrow was determined to follow in his footsteps despite the fact that there were virtually no female lawyers in existence. At the age of 10, she opened her own ice cream parlor alongside her father's general store.

Always patriotic, Farrow longed to fight in the Spanish-American War, but women were of course not allowed. Instead, she convinced her parents to let her attend business school in Kansas City, Missouri, so that she could become a stenographer. After being denied entrance at several law schools, she finally was allowed to enroll at the Kansas City School of Law in 1901. There she learned the full extent of discriminatory laws against women.

Read the rest of the story at KC History.