Rosa Gerhardt

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]