Selma Moidel Smith June 19, 2013; July 11, 2013; October 24, 2013; October 31, 2013; January 10, 2014; November 8, 2014; November 10, 2014; November 12, 2014 Recommended Transcript of Interview with Selma Moidel Smith (June 19, 2013; July 11, Citation 2013; Oct. 24, 2013; Oct. 31, 2013; Jan. 10, 2014; Nov. 8, 2014; Nov. 10, 2014; Nov. 12, 2014), https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/selma-moidel-smith. Attribution The American Bar Association is the copyright owner or licensee for this collection. Citations, quotations, and use of materials in this collection made under fair use must acknowledge their source as the American Bar Association. Terms of Use This oral history is part of the American Bar Association Women Trailblazers in the Law Project, a project initiated by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and sponsored by the ABA Senior Lawyers Division. This is a collaborative research project between the American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation. 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ABA Senior Lawyers Division Women Trailblazers in the Law ORAL HISTORY of SELMA MOIDEL SMITH Interviewers: Honorable Kathryn Werdegar Rosalyn Zakheim Dates of Interviews: June 19, 2013 July 11, 2013 October 24, 2013 October 31, 2013 January 10, 2014 November 8, 2014 November 10, 2014 November 12, 2014 We Congratulate Our Friend and Colleague Selma Moidel Smith on her inclusion in the ABA Women Trailblazers in the Law Oral History Project “You continue to be an inspiration and a role model to us all.” California Supreme Court Historical Society Fellows of the American Bar Foundation Los Angeles County Bar Association National Association of Women Lawyers Senior Lawyers Division / American Bar Association Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles and also American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Selma Moidel Smith Oral History, Session I — June 19, 2013 Interview by Kathryn Werdegar, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court Women Trailblazers in the Law Oral History Project of the American Bar Association ________ Werdegar: Good afternoon. This is Kathryn Werdegar, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. With me in chambers is Attorney Selma Moidel Smith. Today is June 19th, 2013, and we have just come from a meeting of the Board of Directors of the California Supreme Court Historical Society, on which we both serve.1 1 See Hon. Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, “A Tribute to Selma,” California Supreme Court Historical Society Newsletter (Spring–Summer 2012), pp. 2–5. Available at http://www.cschs.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/CSCHS-SelmaMoidelSmith-Competition.pdf, http://wlh-static.law.stanford.edu/articles/CSCHSNewsSS12-Selma.pdf, and http://www.americanbarfoundation.org/uploads/cms/documents/cschsnewsss12-selma.pdf. Selma Moidel Smith – 1– Session I We will be holding a conversation that will serve as the introduction to Selma’s oral history — which she has been invited to record by the Women Trailblazers in the Law Oral History Project of the American Bar Association. The theme of this conversation will be the role that early influences — together with her own personal characteristics — have played in shaping the Selma that we know today. To begin, I want to read a short item from Selma’s childhood. When she was ten years old, she was in the sixth grade and graduated from Grant Elementary School in Hollywood, California. Her family had moved to California from Ohio at the start of the school year [arriving August 25, 1929], so she had been at the school for only one year. Nevertheless, she received the single Honor Certificate given by the school at graduation. It is dated June 27, 1930, and it gives the reasons Selma was recommended for the award. They are as follows: Because she made a splendid chairman of her History group. Because she has served so well on the Typing Committee, taking home many of the pupils’ compositions to get ready for our book. Because she has made an excellent chairman of the “Clipping Bureau” for current events. Because she has splendid executive ability and uses it. Because of her excellent scholarship. Because we believe that she is an outstanding member of the class and will make an excellent record in higher schools. I know these characteristics, manifested at such a young age by Selma, have continued throughout her life because of my long association with her and my very pleasant opportunity to observe these talents in action. Selma, I’m going to ask you if you could explain some of these to me and elaborate on what the award mentioned. Will you tell me about your “History Group” and your chairmanship? Selma Moidel Smith – 2– Session I Smith: Yes, I’d be glad to. Takes me back a long way, but they were happy days, too. The History Group, actually, was formed by me from my class in the sixth grade. I had felt that history was so important and really wasn’t enough covered, and so I had spoken to the teacher and suggested that I might want to have a separate group that I thought might be the more capable ones, and that we would be able to meet for a little while — after — and discuss in depth more of what we were covering with the class. And so she gave her full permission to do this. I selected my students, and they named me chair — chairman, as they said at that time — and we continued to have our meetings, to discuss, as I say, more in depth and we, as a result, I think had quite an additional history upbringing, shall we say. Everyone enjoyed that very much. Werdegar: Well, to my mind that’s rather extraordinary for a ten-year-old, and no wonder your school was impressed. But not only were you chair of your History Group, you served on the Typing Committee and, I note, you took home “many of the pupils’ compositions to get ready for our book.” Would you tell us about that, and the book that they’re speaking of? Smith: Oh, yes. Well, our teacher felt that the epitome — the mark that she was working toward — was the book at the end that we had all contributed to, and that we had had an opportunity to write a composition for, and that it would become our book. I’m smiling to myself because it says “Typing Committee.” It was a committee of one [laughing]! I was the only one who was typing, and my own took so little time that I was able to volunteer to make all of them look their very best, if they were going into this book, and so I did, and that was how the book was compiled. Selma Moidel Smith – 3– Session I Werdegar: Now, what was the “Clipping Bureau” of which you were also chairman? Smith: Oh, yes. That was related in a way. I suggested to the teacher that we really ought to have something — part of a bulletin board perhaps — where we could put up clippings that we had selected from newspapers having to do perhaps with a particular area that we were covering in our History class at that time. I brought in the first clippings that had to do with a certain country that we were discussing, and it encouraged others. They were put up on the bulletin board, and each child who had one — after all, this was a new experience for them — I was accustomed to reading the newspapers — they were not — and so the teacher was quite pleased to see that they now, instead of just looking at the comic section, were looking at the rest of the newspaper, too. And it did become, as she put it, the “Clipping Bureau.” That was my contribution to the group. Werdegar: Well, continuing, the Honor Certificate cites, “Because,” you, Selma, “she has splendid executive ability and uses it.” I think we’ve already had an inkling as to what that was about, but would you care to expand? Smith: Well, this was something they chose to identify in that way. I was simply doing what came naturally, and fortunately I was able to enlist the cooperation of the teacher, because it was her class [laughing]. She was happy to have these ideas presented, and when the award was given and I brought it home, and so on, I read that line and I said, “Well, I guess that’s what they call it, then.” I actually looked at that almost as something that was new to me — but there it was. Werdegar: You didn’t realize that your talents came under the rubric of “executive ability”? Selma Moidel Smith – 4– Session I Smith: No. Werdegar: And they say, because of your “excellent scholarship.” Smith: Yes, that was always true. It never took me very long to dispose of whatever was being presented for our class work. As a result, and this went on — I’m picturing even into high school, and on — where they limited you to just two outside activities. In my case, they said, “Take that away.” They knew that it wouldn’t matter how many I would engage in, the scholarship would never be less, and that I could be in a number of other activities at the same time that I was doing my school work.