Women’s History Month

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, née Joan Ruth Bader, (born March 15, 1933, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died September 18, 2020, Washington, D.C.), associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 to 2020. She was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Joan Ruth Bader was the younger of the two children of Nathan Bader, a merchant, and Celia Bader. Her elder sister, Marilyn, died of meningitis at the age of six, when Joan was 14 months old. Outside her family, Ginsburg began to go by the name “Ruth” in kindergarten to help her teachers distinguish her from other students named Joan. The Baders were an observant Jewish family, and Ruth attended synagogue and participated in Jewish traditions as a child. She excelled in school, where she was heavily involved in student activities and earned excellent grades.