Lillian Exum Clement
American politician
Lillian Exum Clement (1894 – February 21, 1925), later known as Lillian Stafford, was an American politician who was the first woman elected to the North Carolina General Assembly and the first woman to serve in any state legislature in the Southern United States.
Personal life
Lillian Exum Clement, known as "Exum" or "Ex" was the sixth of seven children born to George Washington Clement and Sara Elizabeth Burnett. Clement attended high school in Asheville, North Carolina and then Asheville Business College, after being encouraged to do so by prominent Asheville-area philanthropist Edith Vanderbilt. Clement's father was employed as a foreman by Edith's husband, George Vanderbilt. Clement took a job as an office deputy in the Buncombe County sheriff's department at the age of 14 and studied law with James Jefferson Britt and Robert G. Goldstein in her spare time. In 1916, she earned one of the highest scores on the state bar exam among 70 students and received an award. She became a criminal lawyer in 1917 and was the first female attorney in North Carolina without male partners. She served as chief clerk of the Buncombe County draft board. She was a member of the Asheville Business and Professional Women's Club and the United Daughters of the Confederacy
There is some dispute over Clement's date of birth, which is widely reported as 1894. According to the North Carolina State Archives, the 1900 U.S. Federal Census records her birth as taking place in March 1886, while the 1910 census records her year as 22, which would make her birth year 1888.
The public source identifies “Lillian Exum Clement” as american politician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lillian, Exum and Clement.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6548108. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1894, 1925, 1916 and 1917.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lillian Exum Clement” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.