Looking Back...The Advocacy of Olive Rabe in Schwimmer v. United States

Jane Dall Wilson contributed the article, "Looking Back...The Advocacy of Olive Rabe in Schwimmer v. United States" in the April 2013 issue of Circuit Rider, a publication of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association.

The article recaps a 1927 case in which a Hungarian immigrant woman was denied U.S. citizenship because of her unwillingness to take up arms against the United States. Rabe, one of the few women lawyers in the Seventh Circuit at the time, fought for Schwimmer's citizenship, winning an historic victory in the Seventh Circuit that was overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court in 1929. The Supreme Court overturned its own ruling 17 years later, agreeing with Rabe's arguments. Rabe helped pave the way for women practicing in the Seventh Circuit and other federal courts.