Legislators and Politicians presents the lives of the unique women who have served in Iowa's government. Through their stories of campaigning, media involvement, and political strategies, Iowa's women politicians define their experiences in the political arena.

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istorically, men have dominated Iowa's political climate. Men drafted Iowa's constitutions, created and instituted Iowa's laws, and for years had sole access to Iowa's ballot boxes. But in 1928, a radical change occurred in Iowa politics: voters in Jackson County elected Carolyn Pendray, the first woman ever to serve in the Iowa House of Representatives. In the years following Pendray's election, other Iowa women have chosen to challenge the status quo and pursue a political career. Despite the numerous obstacles they encountered in a male-dominated system, these women politicians have shaped and defined state law through their hard work and dedication. Legislators and Politicians collects the stories of these dynamic, resourceful women. Told through a combination of interviews, newspaper articles, and personal writings, these accounts convey the varied experiences of Iowa's women politicians: their courage, humor, frustrations, and determination.

America’s Political Women, An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues

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rom Suffrage to the Senate is a comprehensive and valuable compendium of biographies of leading women in U.S. politics, past and present, and an examination of the wide range of women's movements.

Up to date through 2006, this dynamically illustrated reference work explores American women's path to political power and social equality from the struggle for the right to vote and the abolition of slavery to the first African American woman in the U.S. Senate and beyond. This new edition includes over 150 new entries and a brand new section on trends and demographics of women in politics.

With an emphasis on modern pioneers from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds such as Madeleine Albright, Linda Chavez-Thompson, Shirley Chisholm, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Winona LaDuke, and Patsy Mink, From Suffrage to the Senate covers the individuals, organizations, movements, publications, milestones, legislative victories, and court cases that have changed the face of American politics. The in-depth coverage also traces the political heritage of the abolition, labor, suffrage, temperance, and reproductive rights movements.

The alphabetically arranged entries include biographies of every woman from across the political spectrum who has served in the U.S. House and Senate, along with women in the Judiciary and the U.S. Cabinet and, new to this edition, biographies of activists and political consultants. Bibliographical references follow each entry. For easy reference, a handy chronology is provided detailing 150 years of women's history.

This up-to-date reference will be a must-purchase for women’s studies departments, high schools and public libraries and will be a handy resource for those researching the key players in women’s politics, past and present.

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ary Louise Smith chaired the Republican National Committee (RNC) from September 1974 until January 1977.  It is arguable that the party was in worse shape when she took over than it is in mid-2009.  In the months after President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation in early August 1974, the result of the Watergate scandal, public opinion polling found fewer than 20 percent of Americans willing to call themselves Republican.   The November 1974 elections were a disaster for Republicans, party members losing forty-eight House seats and four Senate seats.

President Gerald Ford selected Mary Louise to stop the party’s demise and begin the laborious process of rebuilding it from the precinct up.  Politicians and political commentators moaned and groaned over Ford’s choice.  They argued that a gray-haired grandmother from Iowa, a woman with decades of precinct-level experience, ten years on the national committee, and less than six months as RNC co-chairman was not a professional politician—and that was what the party needed—a professional.

With her Midwestern optimism and her confidence at the podium, she appealed to audiences across the nation, reminding them that they really were, at heart, Republicans and she slowed the mass defection.  She assembled a staff of creative (some observers thought too creative), risk-taking professionals and gave them the leeway to try new approaches.  Sometimes the ideas worked, other times not so much.

In politics, winning is the only measure of success. Yet, in 1974, the party’s status was so vulnerable that some wondered if it would survive as the second party in a two-party system.  Party leaders who knew the party’s day-to-day financial struggle and who watched the polling numbers collapse worried that the Republican Party would become a minor party, one of those listed at the bottom of the ballot, the parties that are so insignificant that few people have ever heard of them.

Mary Louise provided the party with the leadership that kept it from sinking into that abyss of minor parties.  Despite Ford’s loss in 1976, Republicans lost only one seat in the U.S. House and maintained the same number of seats in the U. S. Senate.  Admittedly, those numbers were dismal, but not as dismal as they were for Republicans in the 1930s.

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Mary Louise is a fascinating political figure.  She is the only woman to chair the RNC.  She is the only woman to organize a quadrennial presidential nominating convention for a major party.  A fiscal conservative who supported Barry Goldwater’s disastrous 1964 presidential candidacy, she became a social moderate, supporting abortion rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, and gay rights and remained a fiscal conservative.  She was almost sixty years old when she accepted the chairmanship and while it was not a lifelong dream, she loved leading the party.

After Ford’s loss, the party took a sharp turn to the right, which is well-documented and beyond the scope of this overview.  Mary Louise, however, maintained her moderate views, becoming more visible in her advocacy for them, challenging presidential candidates and presidents to moderate their positions.  President Ronald Reagan appointed her to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and then went to great lengths to get rid of the former chairman of his party—it was a thoroughly captivating drama.  Ultimately, the party rejected her.  Maybe ejected is a better word.  In 1996, she was denied access to the floor of the party’s convention.  She could get a pass to the balcony, but not to the floor of the convention, where her friends were, where the action was, where every former chairman could go, except her.

Maybe you knew Mary Louise.  Maybe you have a favorite story about her.  Maybe you were a party state chairman during her time as chairman and have a few words you’d like to say about her leadership.  If you do, please send your comments to: