Rosa Gerhardt (March 29, 1898 – January 5, 1975) was an American attorney from Mobile, Alabama, where she served as president of the Mobile Bar Association, the first woman in Alabama to hold the position at a local or state bar association.[1][2]
Gerhardt was born on March 29, 1898, in Camden, Alabama, the fourth of nine children of Marcus and Esther Gerhardt.[1] The family moved to Mobile in 1914. Rosa graduated from Mobile High School the same year.[1]
Gerhardt taught at Dauphin Island Elementary School before moving to Washington, D.C., where she worked during World War I, before moving back to Mobile to work as a legal assistant to Gregory L. Smith.[1] After working for Smith for nine years, after he died, she enrolled at Cumberland University's law school in Lebanon, Tennessee, and graduated with honors in June 1930.[1] She passed the Alabama Bar Examination, becoming the second female attorney in Mobile.[1]
In 1933, Gerhardt was a delegate to the Alabama convention to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution.[3] She also was a member of the Mobile Business and Professional Women's Club, and served as club president in 1941.[1]
