On March 17, 1917, five coeds at Washington Square College Law, a Division of New York University, founded Delta Phi Epsilon. The DIMES, as they are referred to, are Dorothy Cohen Schwartzman, Ida Bienstock Landau, Minna Goldsmith Mahler, Eva Effron Robin, and Sylvia Steierman Cohn. Delta Phi Epsilon was formally incorporated under New York State law on March 17, 1922.
That these five women were law students back in the day before women could vote in a federal election is impressive. Today, one must have a bachelor’s degree to apply to law school. In 1917, this was not the case. While the American Bar Association was formed in 1878, the first two women to join the organization did so a year after Delta Phi Epsilon was founded. In 1906, the Association of American Law Schools adopted a requirement that law be a three-year course of study.
Delta Phi Epsilon’s founders were between the ages of 17 and 19 when they formed the organization. They were working on an undergraduate degree in law. Today one needs an undergraduate degree to enter a law school
Minna Goldsmith married Benjamin Mahler in 1922. She had a major hand in the creation of Delta Phi Epsilon’s constitution and bylaws and she served as the organizations first International President in 1922-23.
She practiced law in Jersey City, New Jersey, and raised her family. In April 1941, she was a speaker at a meeting of the current events group of the Passaic Section, National Council of Jewish Woman. Her topic was “Plans for a Future World Order.” According to the newspaper account, she was a “former president of the Jersey City Council of Jewish Women, a former State president of the National Council and former National legislative chairman.”
In October, 1955 she spoke at the Bergen Ethical Society meeting held at the Henry B. Milnes School in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. She had a “wide experience in United Nations activities.” Mahler was a trustee of the New Jersey branch of the American Association for United Nations. She also served as president of the Maplewood AAUN chapter.
For many years she served as State Chairman for United Nations week in New Jersey. She served on the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee and she was a United Nations observer.
World peace was a cause near and dear to her heart and she worked ceaselessly for the cause. She died in August 1989.
