Mary Donlon Alger

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Mary Donlon Alger (August 25, 1893 - March 5, 1977) was an attorney and judge.

She graduated from Cornell University and the Cornell Law School in 1920. While a law student, she was the first female editor-in-chief of the Cornell Law Quarterly.

On November 5, 1940, Alger was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for an at-large seat in the United States House of Representatives, losing by 3% of the vote in a field which included both Democratic and Prohibition party candidates.[1] She was elected as a delegate to the 1948 Republican National Convention.[2] She served on Cornell's Board of Trustees from 1937 to 1966 when she became a Trustee Emeritus and Presidential Councillor.[3]

She served as Chair of the New York State Industrial Board, 1944-1945 and as Chair of the New York State Workers Compensation Board, 1945-1955. In 1947, she served on the Federal Social Security Advisory Council.[4] She served as the first female Judge on the United States Customs Court, 1955-1977.[5]

She was an advocate for full educational opportunities for women:

We must recognize the folly of denying girls serous cultural education because they will marry, while at the same time entrusting children to their rearing. We must wipe out the crazy notion that, in the adult world of ideas and of reason, women do not really count.

[6]

For most of her professional life, she was know as Mary H. Donlon. However, in 1971, she married Martin J. Alger and took the name Mary Donlon Alger.[7]

In recognition for her generousity to Cornell and her service as a Trustee, a women's domitory was named in her honor in 1961. She endowed a professorship in the College of Arts and Sciences to be held by only women, which has been held by Eleanor Harz Jorden and then Mary Beth Norton. In 1956, following the Hungarian uprising, she established a scholarship to provide aid to any young Hungarian woman accepted to Cornell. She also endowed the annual Mary H. Donlon lectures in the ILR School.

A Conference for college trustees and administrators regarding affirmative action for women in education was also named in her honor.[8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=125622 Retrieved 2007-09-07.
  2. ^ http://politicalgraveyard.com/parties/R/1948/NY.html Retrieved 2007-09-07.
  3. ^ Cornell Chronicle, 1977-03-10 p. 2
  4. ^ http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/48advise1.html Retrived 2007-09-07.
  5. ^ http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=60392 Retrieved 2007-09-07.
  6. ^ Outside in: Minorities and the Transformation of American Education By Paula S. Fass p. 172
  7. ^ Women at Cornell: The Myth of Equal Education By Charlotte Williams Conable p. 14
  8. ^ http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED139357&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&accno=ED139357 Retrieved 2007-09-07.