Dorothy Kenyon

Dorothy Kenyon (February 17, 1888 – February 12, 1972) was a New York attorney, judge, feminist and political activist in support of civil liberties. During the era of McCarthyite persecution, she was accused of being affiliated with 28 communist front organizations. Kenyon was a charismatic speaker, and she regularly travelled throughout the U.S. lecturing about civil liberties, the law, and women's equality.

Early life Kenyon was born in New York City, to Maria Wellington (Stanwood) and William Houston Kenyon, a patent attorney. She grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with a family summer home in Lakeville, Connecticut. She graduated from Horace Mann School in 1904. She studied economics and history at Smith College, graduating in 1908. While at Smith she participated in field hockey and tennis, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After spending a year in Mexico and observing poverty and injustice at a close range, she decided to focus on social activism. As a research specialist, she studied wartime labor patterns and collected economic data for the conference. From 1919 to 1925, Kenyon worked for the firm of Pitkin, Rosenson, and Henderson in New York City. Kenyon responded aggressively to McCarthy's accusations by declaring: "He's a lowdown worm and although it ought to be beneath my dignity to answer him, I'm mad enough to say that he's a liar and he can go to hell." In the wake of her confrontation with McCarthy, Kenyon received widespread support from the press and from respected public figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt. When attorney and future Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote her brief for Reed v. Reed—a 1971 Supreme Court case that for the first time extended the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause to women—she added Murray and Kenyon as coauthors in recognition of her debt to their work.

Dorothy Kenyon promised her papers to the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in 1951: "Kenyon's brother and sister-in-law W. Houston Kenyon and Mildred Adams Kenyon donated the bulk of the papers in 1980. The bulk of the papers date from 1888–1972 and focus on Kenyon's personal, professional, and political activities."