Dorothy C. Most, A.B. '24, LL. B. '25, was the only woman in the University of Texas Law School class of 1925. During her time as a student Dorothy kept a scrapbook, collecting mementos and narrating her experiences with law classes, football games, student parties, dating (and breaking up) and the monthly struggle to pay rent. Tarlton Law Library is grateful to Dorothy for her dedication to documenting her time as a student, and delighted to be able to share Dorothy's work with our law school students today.

Dorothy heavily annotated most of her entries with her thoughts and comments, pasting in a returned test to complain about the professors' grading practices, and love notes to complain about the bad dates that followed. 

Her scrapbook contains a wealth of memorabilia, photographs, correspondence, greeting cards, newspaper articles, ephemera and anecdotes related to students, faculty, events, and activities at the University of Texas and its law school.  Dorothy's scrapbook provides a rare glimpse of both public and private aspects of a female student's life in the 1920s.

Towards the end of her time in law school, Dorothy began documenting her job hunt. On this page you can see a sliver of the envelope containing an offer letter from Baker, Botts, Parker & Garwood in Houston, which Dorothy accepted. 

She worked for the firm for several years and then moved to New York City. In 1930, she began serving as an advisor and Dean of Women at St. John's College School of Law, where she received her J.S.D in 1931.

The recital programs throughout the scrapbook speak to Dorothy's talent as a violinist. While in law school, she played in the symphony orchestra at the University of Texas and when she began practicing law in Houston, she studied at the Houston Conservatory of Music. While in New York, Dorothy attended the Julliard School of Music and served as a director of the Brooklyn Opera Company.

She later returned to Texas and resumed practicing law. After 1933, the only apparent additions to the scrapbook are a 1939 letter from Dean Ira P. Hildebrand and some annotations in red ink, dated 1975. Overall the scrapbook is a window into the life of a young law student, and students who read through it today on visits to Tarlton's Special Collections often comment on how Dorothy makes them consider how little things have changed. The entirety of the scrapbook has been digitized and can be seen in our online exhibit here.