Overview

The first woman judge in the state of North Carolina and the first woman in the United States to be elected chief justice of a state supreme court, Susie Marshall Sharp (1907-1996) broke new ground for women in the legal profession. When she retired in 1979, she left a legacy burnished by her tireless pursuit of lucidity in the law, honesty in judges, and humane conditions in prisons. Anna Hayes presents Sharp's career as an attorney, distinguished judge, and politician within the context of the social mores, the legal profession, and the political battles of her day, illuminated by a careful and revealing examination of Sharp's family background, private life, and personality. Judge Sharp was viewed by contemporaries as the quintessential spinster, who had sacrificed marriage and family life for a successful career. The letters and journals she wrote throughout her life, however, reveal that Sharp led a rich private life in which her love affairs occupied a major place, unsuspected by the public or even her closest friends and family. With unrestricted access to Sharp's abundant journals, papers, and notes, Anna Hayes uncovers the story of a brilliant woman who transcended the limits of her times, who opened the way for women who followed her, and who improved the quality of justice for the citizens of her state. Without Precedent also tells the story of a complicated woman, at once deeply conservative and startlingly modern, whose intriguing self-contradictions reflect the complexity of human nature.

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9781469605807

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Without Precedent is a richly documented, sprightly biography of one of the most significant women in twentieth-century North Carolina. It deserves a wide audience--not only among students of the state, but anyone interested in the life of a woman who succeeded in a male world. --William Link, author of William Friday: Power, Purpose, and American Higher Education For those who remember her and for those who do not, Hayes's revealing portrait of the first woman to preside over the North Carolina Supreme Court is a tribute to the author's persistence. Her discovery of documents that unveil the most private dimensions of the life of this very public figure is every biographer's dream. Evenhanded and perceptive, Without Precedent tells us much about a notable woman. In addition, it informs about a wealth of other twentieth-century topics: legal education, the practice of law, party politics, the courts, feminism, North Carolina, and the South. --Jane Sherron De Hart, co-author of Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA and author of the forthcoming Ruth Bader Ginsburg Before the Bench I could not put this book down. Susie Marshall Sharp's public life makes for an interesting story of feminism, lawyering, education, and party politics. But what is so rare is to find such a well-documented and totally unexpected story of her personal life to go along with the public record. This book works beautifully as a love story(ies), as a history of the courts and legal politics, and as a biography of the fascinating Susie Marshall Sharp. --Glenda Gilmore, author of Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 and Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 Susie Sharp was a highly significant figure on the twentieth-century legal landscape, foremost in North Carolina but with national ramifications as well. Anna Hayes's magnum opus fully and accurately depicts the Judge Sharp the North Carolina legal community knew so well, while simultaneously revealing aspects of her life that few, if any, could have imagined. This full-length portrait will be the definitive work on Chief Justice Sharp for a long time to come. --Willis P. Whichard, Associate Justice, Ret., Supreme Court of North Carolina This is a remarkable book about a remarkable woman--an honestly written, well-documented account of the groundbreaking life of Susie Sharp, the first woman in the country to be elected chief justice of a state supreme court and one of the most influential North Carolinians--male or female--of the twentieth century. Energetic, free-thinking, politically astute, charmingly attractive, and with confidence in who she was and what she believed, Susie Sharp scaled every obstacle to female advancement in a legal profession dominated by men throughout her career at the bar. Anna Hayes's rich telling of Susie Sharp's personal and professional lives--not always, it seems, in sync--reveals a woman who is as wonderfully human, caring, and sensitive as she is driven, erudite, and ambitious. I greatly enjoyed this book. For those like me who knew, worked with, and admired Chief Justice Sharp in her later years, it will not only evoke fond memories, it will also be full of surprises. --Jim Exum Jr., Chief Justice, Ret., Supreme Court of North Carolina

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