Margaret Chase Smith

This biography of Margaret Chase Smith is the first historical treatment of Smith to use her voluminous private papers as well as extensive interviews with Smith and her colleagues in Congress. As Maine's daughter, Smith was frugal, hard-working, reticent, and caustic. At age thirty-two she married, in scandal, state politician Clyde Smith with whom she had been involved since she was sixteen and who was twenty-one years her senior. Smith came to Washington when Clyde was elected to Congress and, against his wishes, she became his secretary. When Clyde died in office in 1940, Smith played the widow's game and successfully ran for his seat. In the House during World War II, Smith sat on the powerful Naval Affairs Committee and, tutored by committee counsel Bill Lewis, developed a national constituency, the military, which in turn allowed her to better serve Maine's interests. Lewis directed Smith's first Senate campaign in 1948 when she won an upset victory by an astonishing margin. Overnight she became the darling of the Republican party, the heroine of women everywhere, and the only woman in the United States Senate.

Janann Sherman is an assistant professor of American history at the University of Memphis.

This book is a collection of nine essays examining the impact of World War II on the American people. The contributions range from "macro" studies (the ways corporations sought to recruit women into the work force) to "micro" studies (the impact of the war on working conditions in Indiana) to biography (the Congressional career of Margaret Chase Smith). Focusing as it does on the domestic scene, this study offers a comprehensive selection of the impact of the war on Americans, and the way it influenced concepts of gender, race, class, and ethnicity.

This volume, the second of two companion biographical dictionaries, provides extensive entries on 31 women orators active since 1925. It covers women with distinguished political careers, such as Clare Boothe Luce, Frances Perkins, and Ann Willis Richards; women with important scientific careers, such as Rachel Carson and Helen Broinowski Caldicott; and women with religious careers, such as Dorothy Day and Pauli Murray. It includes extraordinary women, such as Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt and women who have been active in the women's movement as well as those, such as Phyllis Schlafly, who have been actively anti-feminist. Each entry provides brief biographical information, focuses on an analysis of the subject's rhetoric, and concludes with information on sources.

There are more than fifty women in the United States Congress and nearly one-fourth of foreign service posts are held by women. Nevertheless, the United States has yet to entrust a senior foreign policy job, outside of the United Nations, to a woman. Beneath these statistics lurk central myths that Jeffreys-Jones cogently identifies and describes: the "Iron Lady" - too masculine; the "lover of peace" - too "pink"; the weak or the promiscuous. These are to name only a few. With an eye to the feminist foreign policy leaders of the future, the author traces the successes and failures of collectivities such as Women Strike for Peace and individuals who were influential in international politics since World War I, including Alice Paul, Jane Addams, Jeannette Rankin, Dorothy Detzer, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith, Helen Gahagan Douglas, Bella Abzug, Margaret Thatcher, and many others. These women often found ways to employ the myths to their own and to their country's benefit, and more recently have had the freedom to defy the stereotypes altogether.

Climbing the Hill explores the history and current status of women members and staff on Capitol Hill. It traces the difficult history of women in Congress, their slow and painful path to political power, and their hopes and fears of today. It presents a comprehensive analysis of women's success at the polls and within the congressional hierarchy - legislatively, politically, and socially. Through in-depth research and extensive personal interviews, the authors reveal the deep-rooted sexual divisions within the U.S. Congress and the continuing struggle of women to break into the "old boy" network. The book's comprehensive coverage is unique and up-to-date and will be of interest to scholars, students, and interested layreaders.

This comprehensive reference guide to women who have served in Congress provides detailed biographies of each of the 200 women who have held office on Capitol Hill over the past 80 years. Along with statistics on their congressional service, the biographies contain first-hand interviews and personal anecdotes. An introduction outlines women's history in Congress and their slow rise to prominence.