Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review Volume 14 Number 1 Article 3 9-1-1993 On Film: A Social History of Women Lawyers in Popular Culture 1930-1990 Ric Sheffield Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/elr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Ric Sheffield, On Film: A Social History of Women Lawyers in Popular Culture 1930-1990, 14 Loy. L.A. Ent. L. Rev. 73 (1993). Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/elr/vol14/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ON FILM: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF WOMEN LAWYERS IN POPULAR CULTURE 1930 TO 1990 Ric Sheffield I. INTRODUCTION The year 1929 remains indelibly imprinted in the minds of millions of Americans as the year of the great stock market crash. To most, American society would never again be the same. 1929 was also an important year in the history of popular culture in that the Academy Awards were presented for the first time; Station WGY in Schenectady, New York, was the first to broadcast a regular television schedule; the infamous but popular Amos N' Andy radio show made its national premiere; and American cinema began production of its first portrayal of a fictional woman attorney. A crash of another sort, the introduction of the motion picture industry's first big-screen "lady lawyers," irreversibly changed the face of the lawyer-courtroom film genre.