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Interview with Ruth Mantak

IntervieweeInterview with Ruth Mantak American

InterviewerInterviewed by Debra C. Ruel American

Date2016 December 8

DimensionsDuration: 8 Minutes, 53 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineGift of the Connecticut Bar Foundation

DescriptionOral history interview with Ruth Mantak who was interviewed by Debra C. Ruel on December 8, 2016 for the Connecticut Bar Foundation's History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project.

Topics Discussed:

- Family Background: Ruth Mantak discusses her family. She grew up in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and moved to Plainville in October 1941, just before Pearl Harbor. Her father was a superintendent of schools.

- College Education: Ruth Mantak attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Ruth majored in mathematics.

- Early Career and Decision to Study Law: After college, Ruth spent two years in Washington, D.C., working for the Army Map Service. In 1954, Ruth returned to Plainville and decided to attend law school in Hartford. She was accepted to UConn Law School.

- Law School: In her class at UConn Law School, there was only one other woman, Patricia Smith. Ruth took courses such as contracts, torts, real property, constitutional law, conflict of laws, and evidence. She was admitted to the bar on August 16, 1957, and married on September 7, 1957.

- Early Employment: Initially, finding employment as a female lawyer was difficult. After marrying and moving to Albany, New York, then Pittsburgh, Ruth volunteered at Legal Aid in Pittsburgh and passed the Pennsylvania Bar exam. She handled her father's estate after his death in 1956.

- Challenges for Women Lawyers: Ruth encountered societal resistance to women in law.

- Entry into Politics: In 1969, she was nominated to run for Town Council in Bloomfield, becoming one of the first two women elected to the council that year.

- Opening Her Own Practice: In 1973, Ruth opened an office with William Zeman in Hartford. On January 1, 1979, she co-founded an all-women law firm, Mantak, Christensen, and Ruhe, with Barbara Ruhe and Jane Christensen. Her practice included divorce, closings, estates, and collections.

- Women's Movement: She was involved in the women's movement in the 1960s and early 1970s, working to get women elected to office and appointed as judges, advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). She was part of the National Women's Political Caucus.

- Balancing Work and Family Life: Ruth found that having her own practice allowed her flexibility to balance work and family responsibilities.

Object number2024.38.51a-b

NotesProject Overview: At the turn of the 20th century, other than Mary Hall, women lawyers were virtually unknown in Connecticut. By contrast, at the turn of the 21st century, law schools were enrolling roughly the same number of women as men. Since their earliest time at the bar, women have become leaders in all areas of the profession at a pace out of all proportion to their brief history and number.

In 1999, the Fellows of the Connecticut Bar Foundation initiated the Oral History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project. Within the framework of this dynamic project, the Fellows have been creating a permanent video, audio, and photographic historical record of milestone achievements of women as they have become more visible and achieved prominence in the field of law. In 2019, a leadership donation of $20,000 from the law firm of Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey enabled the project to significantly broaden its scope and plan for the future.

Through its first two phases, the project worked with award-winning documentarian Karyl Evans and attorney/photographer Isabel Chenoweth to produce fifty-eight oral history interviews with outstanding female attorneys and 118 portraits of women in the Connecticut judiciary.

The oral history interviews have collected the stories of women whose ingenuity, perseverance, and intelligence dismantled barriers that historically prevented women from pursuing careers in the law. Connecticut has benefited from the efforts of these “pioneers” as they enriched the legal profession by joining the ranks of their male peers and paved the way for more women to join the profession. (Source: Connecticut Bar Foundation)