Long before the women's liberation movement of the Sixties and Seventies, Marian Mayer Berkett became the first female lawyer in Louisiana. As a law student in the 1930s, the Baton Rouge-native became accidentally entrenched in the turbulent era that was Huey P. Long’s reign as governor. Mrs. Berkett passed away this June at the age of 104, and in this edition of NOLA Life Stories, we share this remembrance of her time in Huey P. Long’s Baton Rouge and her breakthroughs practicing law.
This NOLA Life Stories interview was conducted by Mark Cave for The Historic New Orleans Collection and produced for WWNO by Sarah Holtz.