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Honoring the First Library Director
1 942 FRANCES AMES ’43 and FLORA KIRLEY ’43 served
as the first female editors on the Virginia Law Review. Listed on the masthead as “Mrs. F.F. Ames” and “Miss F. Kirley,” they took on their roles together the same year. World War II may have opened up opportunities for the women, as they were the sole editors during the January 1943
❱ Ames ’43 and Kirley ’43 stand with their Virginia Law Review colleagues.
edition. Male board members serving in the armed services were denoted with an asterisk.
Frances Ames
Flora Kirley
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When FRANCES FARMER graduated in 1933 from the University of Richmond’s law school—the only woman in her class—she received a medal as the class’ best all-around graduate. In those days, women found the doors of law firms often closed to them. Farmer stayed on at the University of Richmond, serving as secretary to the dean and gradually taking charge of the law library. This proved . her métier. In 1942, Farmer moved to. the University of Virginia, being appointed ’ as law librarian in 1944. When Farmer came on board, UVA’s law library was a leaking ship. The library had fewer than 40,000 books, none of them catalogued. Students and faculty had to poke ❱ Law through the shelves, librarian Frances hoping to find what Farmer, who they needed. Under later served as director Farmer’s supervision, of the in a little over two library, becomes years’ time, the entire the first collection had been woman to teach at catalogued and the enlarged. Within 10 Law School in 1943. years of Farmer’s taking over, the law library celebrated the acquisition of its 100,000th volume, making it the largest law library in the South. No librarian has ever fought more tenaciously to advance her cause. Finding state funding skimpy, Farmer persuaded the Law School’s alumni to give generously to the library—more alumni dollars than state dollars during those 10 years. By the time of Farmer’s retirement in 1976, the library had 300,000 volumes, and she had organized and coordinated the library’s move to North Grounds. Farmer guarded her turf with passion. Students who put their stocking feet on the library tables could expect a reprimand. Successive deans knew to tread carefully when dealing with Farmer. But she earned the respect and admiration of the Law School’s community and of the law librarian profession nationally. In 1963, she became the Law School’s first female [untenured] professor. Speaking at the dedication of the Arthur J. Morris Library, former Governor and UVA President Colgate Darden declared that Farmer’s “unremitting labor” during her 32 years of service had brought forth a library “in every respect equal to what a great law school deserves and requires.” —Professor A. E. Dick Howard ’61
Frances Farmer
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Elizabeth Taliaferro
Ruth Taliaferro
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Seeking Equality in Law JANET MARY RILEY LL.M. ’60,
RUTH S. TALIAFERRO ’50
and her daughter, ELIZABETH “BETTY” TALIAFERRO ’53, attended
the Law School at the same time (see p. 58).
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JANE CASTER ’56 was
the first woman elected to the editorial board of the Virginia Law Weekly.
the first female law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, was also the first woman to obtain an LL.M. from UVA Law. She used her law degrees not only to teach, but to foster ❱ Janet Mary Riley equality. As is the first woman to a Louisiana obtain an property LL.M. law expert, Riley led a committee to draft proposed revisions to the state’s civil code. She looked at areas of the law that unfairly discriminated on the basis of sex, including as they related to marital property. She was also a civil rights activist and member of the Community Relations Council and the Commission on Human Rights of the Catholic Committee of the South. She wrote the brief in Lombard v. Louisiana, a lunch counter sit-in case that rose to the U.S. Supreme Court, reversing the criminal convictions of protestors who did not exit a restaurant when instructed.
Jane Caster
Janet Mary Riley
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FALL 2019 UVA LAWYER 55