Mary Donlon (Alger) joined Alpha Omicron Pi at Cornell University. She spent one year doing general classes and the following three as a law student, when Cornell’s law school only required one year of college study to enroll as a law student. Her older sister Joanna, who was two years ahead of her, was a member of the chapter, too.
Years later, she was asked why she chose to study law at a time when that was not done often. She recounted that in 1915 someone may have told her “the professions, especially the law, were very difficult for women,” and she wanted to challenge that theory.
While at Cornell, she was president of Student Government and played an active role in several organizations. She was tapped for Raven and Serpent, a junior women’s secret society based on extracurricular activities, and Mortar Board. Donlon was elected Editor in Chief of the Cornell Law Quarterly from a field of 13 men and herself. This gave her the distinction of being the first woman to serve as editor of a law review at any U.S. law school.
After graduation, she was hired by Burke & Burke, a Wall Street law firm. She spent the next 25 years at the firm. Donlon made partner in 1928, and was the first and only woman to do so for decades. She was both a trailblazer and rarity.
In 1923, Donlon began a six-year term as a Trustee of Alpha Omicron Pi’s Anniversary Endowment Fund. In 1957, she received its Elizabeth Heywood Wyman Award.
Donlon was also a loyal Cornellian and served the institution in a number of ways. In 1932, she began a two-year term as director of the Cornell Alumni Corporation. The next year, she was President of the nationwide Federation of Cornell Women’s Clubs. In that capacity, she started a conference for Cornell women, bringing professional women to campus to meet with female students and offer career advice. It was networking before networking was a word. Among the committee members planning the event was R. Louise Fitch, Dean of Woman and a former Tri-Delta officer.
In 1937, she was elected an alumni trustee and served in this capacity until 1966 when she was elected Director Emeritus. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for women. Donlon was named a Presidential Councillor, one of Cornell’s highest alumni honors.
She was breaking ground for women in public service at the same time as she was serving Cornell. A staunch Republican, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey appointed her as chairman of the NY State Industrial Board in 1944. The next year she was appointed chairman of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, a position she held for a decade until she became a judge.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed her as Judge of the United States Customs Court in 1955. Her Cornell Law School colleague and friend Judge Elbert Tuttle swore her in. She retired in 1969 and moved to Tucson, Arizona.
She left her mark on Cornell, and in 1961, a women’s dormitory was named in her honor. She established a professorship, a scholarship, a lecture series, and a fund to honor the widower she married in 1971, Martin Joseph Alger. When she was 78, they wed and she took his last name. They spent winters in Tuscon and summers at the Lake Placid Club in upstate New York. She died on March 5, 1977.
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