Barbara Nachtreib Armstrong

Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong (formerly Grimes; August 4, 1890 – January 18, 1976) was a lawyer and law professor in California. In 1923, she became the first woman to serve as a law professor at a law school of a major university, at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. In 1935, she became the second woman to become a full professor of law at an ABA-approved, AALS-member college, two years after Harriet Spiller Daggett at Louisiana State University; a third female tenured law professor was not appointed until Margaret Harris Amsler at Baylor University Law School in 1941. Armstrong advocated social insurance throughout her career, and was a key figure in the development of the US Social Security system.

Early life She was born in San Francisco. Her parents were born in the Midwest, descended from German immigrants. She, her sister and two brothers attended local public schools. She them studied economics at University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a BA in 1913. She moved on to law school, where she was one of only two women in her class, and received a JD from Boalt Hall, the University of California's School of Jurisprudence, in 1915. She was admitted to the California Bar the same year.

Career She practiced law and was also executive secretary of the California Social Insurance Commission from 1915 to 1919. She was the first woman to become a full-time faculty member at a major US law school.