First members of the Omicron Chapter of Phi Delta Delta

Julia Radle, Class of 1899, was Dickinson Law’s first female student.  She was followed by Sara M. Marvel, who entered the Law School the year after Ms. Radle.  By the Fall of 1922, there were enough women enrolled at the Law School for the formation of a Women’s Law Club.  The Club was formed by Mrs. Eleanor Stevenson and Anna E. Davis, Class of 1923; M. Vashti Burr and Florence E. Everhart, Class of 1924; and Dorothy E. Stroh and Eleanor F. Buchanan, Class of 1925.

On May 18, 1923, the Women’s Law Club became the Omicron Chapter of Phi Delta Delta, a women’s law fraternity that had been established in 1911 at the College of Law, University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

One of the founders of the Women’s Law Club, M. Vashti Burr from the Class of 1924 went on to serve as President of Phi Delta Delta from 1936-1938.  On August 12, 1972, Phi Delta Delta merged with Phi Alpha Delta.  In 1974, the Omicron Chapter was renamed after Ms. Burr and became known as the M. Vashti Burr Chapter.  The Burr Chapter of Phi Alpha Delta still exists at the Law School today.

M. Vashti Burr

Ms. Burr also played a significant role as an alumna of the Law School, serving as a Charter Member, and subsequently secretary, of The Dickinson School of Law, General Alumni Association.  As an attorney, she was the first female Assistant Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1926 to 1931, and she served as Deputy Attorney General from 1943 to 1955.

William Vallie Whittington

Ms. Burr married William Vallie Whittington, an attorney with the U.S. Department of State.  Mr. Whittington was the Technical Adviser on Treaties with the International Secretariat of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, at which the United Nations Charter was drawn up and signed.  A limited number of certified copies of the Charter were bound in leather.  Mr. Whittington, due to his position, was able to obtain one of these copies.

Ms. Burr, who retained her maiden name after marriage, passed away in 1963, and in 1968, Mr. Whittington married Louise Gunlock Weathers.  After Mr. Whittington’s death in 1986, Mrs. Whittington wrote to the Library of Dickinson Law, indicating that she wished to donate Mr. Whittington’s copy of the UN Charter and other documents related to the creation of the UN and the surrender of Germany in the Second World War.  The copy of the UN Charter is presently on display on the second floor of the Library.