Barron, Jennie L. (Jennie Loitman), 1891-1969

Judge. Born in Boston and educated at Boston University: B.A., 1911; LL.B. and LL.M., 1914; and an honorary LL.D., 1959. Barron was elected to the Boston School Committee in 1925. In 1934 she was appointed to the District Court, in 1937 full-time to the Boston Municipal Court, and in 1959 to the Superior Court as Associate Justice, the first woman to serve full time. She married Samuel Barron, Jr., had three daughters, and in 1959 was selected National American Mother of the Year. She was active with many professional, charitable, and civic organizations, including the American Association of University Women, and the Massachusetts Association of Women Lawyers.

Jennie Loitman Barron was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 12, 1891. She was educated at Girls’ High School in Boston and Boston University. After finishing a four-year degree in only three years, she was awarded her law degree two years later. JLB joined the suffragist movement while she was in college. She was the first president of the Boston University Equal Suffrage League, and she advocated for equal rights for women at many meetings sponsored by this group.

JLB married Samuel Barron in 1918. They had three daughters: Erma (Barron) Wernick, Joy (Barron) Rachlin, and Deborah (Barron) Blazar, who died in 1956.

JLB started her thirty-five year career as a judge in 1934 and was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Joseph B. Ely as a special justice of the Western Norfolk District. She was the first mother on the Boston School Committee, and the first female United States delegate to the United Nations Congress on Crime and Juvenile Delinquency. JLB became an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1957; she was the first woman to hold this position. In 1959, JLB was awarded the National Mother of the Year Award by American Mothers, Inc.

JLB died on March 28, 1969.