Class of 1908: Amy Wren

Amy Wren ’08 (1879–1951)
A longtime Brooklyn attorney, Wren became in 1928 “the first woman to get appointment from Federal Court” when she was sworn in as U.S. Commissioner for the Eastern District of New York. Wren was quoted in the New York Times: “I will be able to function… just like anybody else. There will be no question of man or woman in any arraignment.” A practicing lawyer for two decades before her appointment, she was also active in Republican politics and among the first women to hold a federal judicial office in New York. She also worked closely with the women employees of Brooklyn Rapid Transit to protest sexist transportation laws that caused the termination of over a thousand women workers.