Mary Belle Spencer

Mary Belle Withrow Spencer (August 9, 1882 – July 1, 1942) was an American lawyer based in Chicago. Spencer was known for well-publicized lawsuits and opinions, and for her unconventional parenting choices.

Mary Belle Withrow was born in Platteville, Wisconsin, the daughter of George Withrow and Mary Catherine Thurtell Withrow.^[1] She gained "highest honors" as a student at Chicago-Kent College of Law,^[2] and graduated from Northwestern University Law School. She was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1917.^[3]

Spencer was a Cook County Public Guardian from 1918 to 1921.^[4] In that role, she succeeded Nellie Carlin,^[5] and represented minors in juvenile court.^[6][7] She was also a trial lawyer; "the day before her baby was born she was in the court fighting a murder case," according to a 1920 account.^[8] She ran unsuccessfully for a Congressional seat in 1922.^[9][10] In 1926 she defended two prisoners who killed a warden at Joliet.^[11]

In 1933 Spencer sought an injunction to keep under-dressed women, including burlesque performer Sally Rand,^[12] from working at the Century of Progress world's fair in Chicago.^[13][14] Also in 1933, she published a 48-page booklet arguing that the Lindbergh kidnapping was a "stupendous hoax", and that the child died because of his parents' negligence.^[15] She later said the book was intended as satire on the police and the legal system.^[16]

Spencer's unconventional parenting of her two daughters was a matter of press interest,^[17][18][19] including Time magazine accounts of her daughter Mary Belle's bathing suit photos in 1934,^[20] and her elopement at 16, in 1936.^[21][22] Her daughter Victoria was briefly a "fan dancer",^[23] before she also married at 16.^[24][25]

Withrow married physician Richard Vance Spencer in 1910, and had two daughters, Victoria and Mary Belle. The Spencers were separated when he died in 1938,^[26][27] and she died in 1942, at the age of 59, in Chicago.^[28]