M

y fascination with political women originated with Iowa women legislators and one of them in particular.  I met Minnette Doderer in November 1980 at the gathering that mourned the loss of that year’s version of the Iowa Equal Rights Amendment.  Voters had resoundingly rejected the attempt to add women to the Iowa Constitution earlier in the month.  Among the bereaved (no, I am not being overly dramatic here, it was the first time I had really committed myself to a political campaign and I was a sad woman) was Minnette, who had just been returned to the Iowa legislature by Iowa City area voters.  I met Minnette that night.  When the Iowa General Assembly came to order in January 1981, I was her floor clerk.

I worked for Minnette for three sessions (1981 through 1983) and learned more from her than I did in the seven years I later spent in grad school.  Minnette knew Iowa legislative politics and loved them.  I loved watching Minnette plot and plan and then work the House floor and work the lobbyists. Whether she succeeded or failed, she had another issue, another bill to fight for, or maybe against.

She believed that women legislators had to work together, regardless of party.  To that end, she organized weekly brown bag lunches.  I attended the meetings as Minnette’s clerk and watched Republican and Democratic women work together, honor differing views on issues like abortion, and form dynamic and caring relationships.  I became fascinated by political women as I witnessed their achievements, their generosity with each other, and their commitment to enhancing Iowa women’s lives.

Working for Minnette was great fun, always interesting, and consistently educational, whether it was learning about comparable worth or finding sexist laws in the Code of Iowa.  After the 1983 session, however, it was time for me to move on.  My children’s needs had changed and I had more freedom to pursue something new.

After I completed a master’s degree in history at Iowa State University in 1987, I stayed for a doctorate.  As I began to work on that degree, Minnette approached me with an idea:  an oral history of the women who had served in the Iowa General Assembly.  She found donors to pay for transcribing the interviews and related expenses and I traveled the state interviewing former and current women legislators.  The project, “A Political Dialogue,” became the basis for my dissertation and my first book, Legislators and Politicians:  Iowa’s Women Lawmakers.

After observing women lawmakers for the three sessions I worked for Minnette and then interviewing more than fifty Iowa women legislators, I was captivated by women who entered politics.  Whether lawmakers, civil rights leaders, suffrage leaders, or organization leaders, all of the women who decided they had power and used it intrigued me.  As I wrote the first edition of From Suffrage to the Senate, I became familiar with a wide range of American political women and my respect for them deepened.

One of the political women for whom I have deep regard is Mary Louise Smith.  I met Mary Louise in 1980, during that 1980 state ERA campaign mentioned above.  In 1982, I started a feminist newsletter that covered legislative issues, after all I was working for the legislator who was the driving force behind many of them and had an ongoing inside scoop.  Mary Louise agreed to help the newsletter by allowing me to put her name on the masthead as a board member.

It was probably 1992 before I had much contact with her again.  Another state Equal Rights Amendment was on the ballot that year.  Mary Louise’s name was still gold on a fundraising letter in Iowa, maybe more with the general population than with Republicans, the party having become so dominated by Christian conservatives.  I often delivered letters for her to sign; she always insisted on hand-signing every one, as many as two or three hundred at a time.  When I made these deliveries or picked up the signed letters, she regularly invited me to sit and chat, which I thought was an incredible honor.  My respect for her grew.

Ultimately, she agreed to oral interviews that would become part of her biography.  If you have stories about Mary Louise that would help readers understand her and her contributions, please consider sending them to me.  I will need contact information to verify the story and its source.