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Pearl M. Hart
(April 7, 1890 - March 22, 1978) U.S.A.

Pearl M. Hart

Attorney

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Pearl M. Hart was born as Pearl Minnie Harchovsky, in Traverse City, Michigan, the fifth daughter and only American born child of David and Rebecca Harchovsky. A few years later, the family moved to Chicago, where her father served as rabbi to a congregation on the southwest side. From her early environment, and the examples of both parents, she developed a lifelong passion for social justice.

She left school at fourteen to become a wage earner, and a few years later began attending classes at the John Marshall Law School. After being admitted to the bar in 1914, Hart became one of the first female attorneys in Chicago to specialize in criminal law.

Her life long relationship with the John Marshall Law School was one of respect and mutual admiration: she taught at John Marshall Law School until her late 70's, and shortly after her 80th birthday, the school awarded her an honorary doctorate.

In her early career, she focused on the needs of young people in the juvenile court system, and then on issues facing women - many of whom were charged with prostitution - passing through the courts.

In 1933, Hart volunteered to serve as the first public defender in the city's morals court, where most of the female defendants were unable to afford counsel. Before Hart took the position, the court's conviction rate was approximately 90%; within four months of Hart's arrival, that number dropped to 10%.

In the 1950s, Hart helped clients accused of communist subversion. In a landmark case, the United States Supreme Court sided with Hart and her client, George Witkovich, holding that non-citizens are protected by the constitutional guarantees of free association and speech.

Throughout her career, Hart defended members of Chicago's queer community against police and other official harassment. Although generally a private person, Hart became more visible in the homophile movement in the 1960s, helping to form Mattachine Midwest and speaking on its behalf.

Pearl Hart was a founding member and board member of the national Lawyers Guild, the Committee to Defend the Foreign-Born, and the Portes Cancer Prevention Clinic. She served, with distinction, as a defender of the oppressed, through the red-baiting periods which followed both world wars, the McCarthy era and the hearings of the U.S. House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee. She served without fee in many good cases, including the adoption services of the Episcopal Archdiocese of Chicago.

She was involved in the founding and work of the present Mattachine organization in 1965, as well as its predecessor. Hart met pulp writer and poet Valerie Taylor in 1961 and the two became partners in 1963; they remained a couple until Hart's death.

Two of Pearl Hart's dreams never came true: to be elected to the City Council of Chicago and to be appointed as a judge. She was too liberal and too honest to win the backing of a corrupt political system. Her campaign for the City Council seat was conducted by Studs Terkel, a long-time friend and fellow fighter for social justice.

Although in failing health, Pearl Hart worked until a few weeks before her death. Despite Hart's decades of work for social justice, Valerie Taylor was denied admittance to Hart's hospital room as she lay dying; by the time Taylor was let in, Hart had slipped into a coma from which she would not wake. Pearl M. Hart died of pancreatic cancer; she was eighty-four.

She left a minimal estate after sixty years of unremitting work. Her inheritance is the love and respect of thousands of men and women whom she helped, and a society somewhat better for her efforts - which is what she wanted.

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Source: http://lgbt-history-archive.tumblr.com/

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