Bessie Margolin

Bessie Margolin (1909 - June 19, 1996) was a U.S. Department of Labor attorney from 1939 until 1972, arguing numerous cases before the Supreme Court. Margolin undertook a large amount of litigation related to the Fair Labor Standards Act, creating a vast body of law in the area of employment standards in the process.

Margolin's parents, who escaped persecution against Jews in Russia, immigrated to New York City shortly before her birth. Her mother died while Margolin was still young, and she spent the rest of her childhood at the Jewish Children's Home in New Orleans. She graduated from Isidore Newman School in 1925. In 1929, Margolin received her bachelor's degree from Tulane University's Newcomb College. She went on to earn her law degree at Tulane and then undertook further legal studies at Yale University. She received her doctorate in law from Yale in 1933.

Following her graduation from Yale, Margolin joined the Tennessee Valley Authority as an attorney. As Margolin later stated, "Government attracts the competent women [attorneys] because they have no alternative," referencing the fact that, at the time, most prestigious law firms would not hire women.

Her career at the TVA was somewhat clouded by allegations that she had an affair with Larry Fly, then general counsel of the agency. In early 1943, after Margolin had left the TVA and following a Federal Communications Commission investigation into Congressman Eugene Cox (D-GA) for accepting a bribe from radio station WALB, the United States House of Representatives created a special investigative committee, chaired by Cox, to look into the FCC. This committee used the affair allegations to convince Fly, by then chairman of the FCC, to cooperate with the committee.

...
Wikipedia