Video by Pam Stevenson, Agave Productions Inc., for Historical League
Sandra Day O’Connor was born in 1930 and grew up on her family’s Lazy B Ranch located on the Arizona-New Mexico border. There were no schools nearby, so she attended both elementary and high school in El Paso, Texas, where she lived with her grandmother. She returned to the ranch during school vacations.
Sandra Day O'Connor attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, graduating magna cum laude and receiving a bachelor’s degree in economics. She then studied at Stanford Law School where she served on the Board of Editors for the Stanford Law Review and graduated third in her class with an LLB degree in 1952. That same year, Sandra Day married John J. O’Connor III, a fellow law student.
Working in the deputy county attorney’s office in San Mateo County, California was where Sandra Day O'Connor's legal career began. When Mr. O'Connor was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed in West Germany, Mrs. O'Connor served as a civilian lawyer for the Quartermaster Market Center in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1957, the O’Connors returned to the United States and settled in Phoenix where Mrs. O’Connor practiced law in a small Maryvale firm.
In 1960, Mrs. O'Connor took a five-year professional break to be home with her three sons, Scott, Brian and Jay. During that time, she became actively involved in the Republican Party; the Junior League of Phoenix where she served as president; and local government.
Mrs. O’Connor returned to the active practice of law in 1965, joining the Arizona Attorney General’s office. She was appointed to the State Senate in 1969, and subsequently was twice elected to further terms. While in the Senate, she became the first woman in the United States to be elected Senate Majority Leader. In 1974, she was elected to the Maricopa County Superior Court, and in 1979 she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals.
Culminating her remarkable legal career, Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and sworn in as the first woman justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America on September 25, 1981.
Historymaker Sandra Day O'Connor biography published in 1992.
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