Esther A. Dunshee Bower (September 1879 – October 13, 1962) was an American lawyer and activist based in Chicago. She was a co-founder of the Illinois
League of Women Voters.
Dunshee was a
probate lawyer with the firm Good, Childs, Bobb, and Wescott. She was president of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois from 1920 to 1921.[4] She was also the second woman elected to the Wilmette Village Board, and a trustee of the Congregational Church of Wilmette. During
World War I, Dunshee went to France with the
YMCA, and worked in a canteen in
Le Mans.[5]
Dunshee was active in the
women's suffrage movement, and a co-founder of the Illinois League of Women Voters.[6] For almost two decades,[7][8][9] she and two other women lawyers, Kate Kane Rossi and
Catherine Waugh McCulloch, were active in supporting the Women's Jury Bill in Illinois,[10] which allowed women to serve on juries after it became a law in 1939.[11] She also worked for laws protecting the economic rights of married women.[3][12] and taught English classes for women at the
Northwestern University Settlement.[13][14] She served on national committees of the League of Women Voters,[15] and presented on legal topics at national League events.[16]
Dunshee published a state-by-state survey of women's rights in 1924.[3]
Personal life
Dunshee married businessman Lorin Alphonso Bower in 1933, after she retired. Lorin Bower died in 1956.[2] Esther Dunshee Bower died in 1962, aged 83 years, in
Conway, Arkansas.[3]
References
^"Bower, Esther (née Dunshee) (Died)". Wilmette Life. October 18, 1962. p. 124B. Retrieved March 9, 2021 – via Wilmette Public Library Local History Collection.