 Substantial public sentiment in support of appointment of a woman to the Supreme Court has been expressed since at least as early as 1930 , when an editorial in the Christian Science Monitor encouraged Herbert Hoover to consider Ohio justice Florence E. Allen or assistant attorney general Mabel Walker Willebrandt . Franklin Delano Roosevelt later appointed Allen to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit — making her " one of the highest ranking female jurists in the world at that time " . However , neither Roosevelt nor his successors over the following two decades gave strong consideration to female candidates for the Court . Harry Truman considered such an appointment , but was dissuaded by concerns raised by justices then serving that a woman on the Court " would inhibit their conference deliberations " , which were marked by informality . 
