Virginia Henry Mayfield (November 14, 1889 – February 4, 1944) was the first female judge in Alabama.[1][2]
Mayfield was born in Birmingham, Alabama and attended that city's public schools.[3][4] Her father, who came from an established family in the state, was the county treasurer.[5] She had one brother and seven sisters.[6][5]
She taught school in Decatur, Alabama and then in Birmingham, first at the Baker School for five years and then spent one year at Martin's school.[4][6] During the summers, she studied at the University of Chicago.[4]
She married Cephus Tayler Mayfield, an assistant traffic mamager at Tennessee Coal and Iron, in 1914.[2][6] The couple lived at 3221 Cliff Road in Birmingham beginning in 1921.[2] Cephus died in 1933.[6]
Mayfield earned her law degree from Birmingham Southern College in 1920 and was admitted to the bar in 1921.[4][2][3] She was, along with Floella T. Bonner, the first woman in Alabama to earn a law degree.[7] Mayfield also studied at the State College of Cedar Falls.[2]
She was a member of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare,[8] a Methodist church, and the Order of the Eastern Star.[6] She died on February 4, 1944, in Washington DC.[4]
After graduating from law school, she worked in the County Treasurer's Legal Department.[3] In 1923, she was appointed to a six-year term on the Court of Domestic Relations in the second division of the Birmingham Circuit Court by Governor William W. Brandon.[4][9][10] Mayfield was the first woman in Alabama to be appointed as a judge.[2][4][5][3] She was also the youngest.[2]
In 1927, she ran for a position on the circuit bench but was defeated by Roger Snyder, the incumbent.[4] When she ran in Jefferson County, she was the first woman to do so.[4] Following her loss, she took a position as the state land agent in Jefferson County.[6] She then moved to Washington, DC, where she took a position in the Department of Justice.[6] The Department transferred her to the Birmingham office where she worked until the office was closed.[6] She returned to Washington on staff at the Federal Communications Commission and then worked as a lawyer in the Veteran's Administration in Washington DC.[4][6] Mayfield was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 1935.[11]