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On International Women's Day, Women CPAs Have Come Far But Have More Strides To Make

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

On International Women's Day, Women CPAs Have Come Far But Have More Strides To Make

Today, women make up more than 50% of accounting graduates entering the profession but only 19% of the partners in accounting firms nationwide.

Photo credit: The Daily Times – November 15, 1929

March 8th is International Women’s Day, a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women as wells as a call to action for accelerating gender parity. As a Certified Public Accountant and a woman, I thought it would be a good day to reflect on a few of the first female CPAs in the U.S.

A Madera Times newspaper profile from November 1937 mentions three females in attendance at a meeting of the American Institute of Accountants.

“That old saw about women having a terrible time making the check-book balance at the end of the month is probably right, if the last meeting in New York of the American Institute of Accountants is any guide. At that meeting there were some 200 certified public accountants – and just three of the figure jugglers were women. It looks like a man’s business.”

The women in attendance were Helen Lord, Ellen Libby Eastman, and Mary E. Murphy.

Helen Lord received her CPA certificate in New York in 1934. In 1937, she was a partner with her father in the New York firm of Lord & Lord and was one of the youngest CPAs in the country. In the late 1940’s, she served as business manager for The Woman CPA, a publication of the American Woman’s Society of CPAs with a circulation of greater than 2,200. Talbot Lake, the author of the Madera Times profile, referred to Lord as a “pleasing, round-faced, attractive young woman.”

Ellen Libby Eastman began as a clerk at the Maine Lumber Company, where she eventually became the chief accountant. She studied for the CPA Exam at night and in 1918, became the first female CPA in Maine. She went on to become the first woman to establish an accounting practice in New England. Eastman focused on state and federal income taxes. In the Madera Times profile, Lake described Eastman as a “bright-eyed, matronly-looking woman.”

Mary E. Murphy was an Iowa native who earned an accounting degree from the University of Iowa and a Master’s in Accountancy from Columbia University. In 1938, Murphy received a doctorate in accountancy from the London School of Economics, only the second woman in the US to do so. She sat for the CPA Exam in Iowa in 1930, becoming the first female CPA in that state. After years of working in public accounting, Murphy served as Chair of the Department of Commerce at St Mary’s College and as an assistant professor of economics at Hunter College, received the first Fulbright professorship of accounting with assignments in Australia and New Zealand, was appointed as the first Director of Research of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, and published or collaborated on hundreds of books, journal articles and scholarly papers. Lake referred to Murphy as being “stockily built” and pointed out that she wore rimmed glasses.

Not in attendance, and thus saved from Lake’s commentary on her personal appearance, was Christine Ross, the first female CPA in the US. New York State enacted licensure legislation in 1896 and held its first CPA exam in December of that year. Ross sat for the exam in June of 1898 and scored second in her group. Despite fulfilling all of the requirements to earn the designation, her certificate was delayed for nearly a year and a half by state regents because of her gender. At long last, Ross was awarded the designation. She went on to work for Manning’s Yacht Agency in New York. Her client roster included a number of women’s organizations and wealthy women in fashion and business.

According to the Madera Times profile, in 1937 there were only ten women members of the American Institute of Accountants and only 50 women engaged in the field. Today, women make up more than 50% of accounting graduates entering the profession but only 19% of the partners in accounting firms nationwide.

In a 2014 conference, Jeanette M. Franzel, member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, noted that women make up about half of the managers at public accounting firms, but leave to pursue careers in industry or entrepreneurship, often due to “excessive hours, uncontrollable schedules, unwieldy travel schedules, and lack of viable career paths that are compatible with other life activities.”

While I have certainly experienced all of the above in my own career, I am thankful for the women who paved the way for me to become a Certified Public Accountant - and thankful that my Forbes contributor profile doesn’t refer to my stocky build and matronly looks.