|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Isabella Greenway: An Enterprising Woman 
Isabella Greenway was at home on the western range and in New York salons, an energetic entrepreneur who managed a ranch, an airline and a resort, a politician who became a key player in the New Deal. A lifelong friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, Isabella blazed a trail for remarkable women in Arizona politics, from Sandra Day O'Connor to Governor Janet Napolitano.
Ruth Hanna McCormick: A Life in Politics 1880-1944 
Ruth Hanna McCormick was the first woman elected to a national statewide office, the first nominated by a major party for the Senate, and the first to manage a presidential nomination campaign, that of Thomas Dewey. Unique though her accomplishments were, she shared with other modern women the problems of balancing personal ambition with the demands of husband, children, and social expectations. Hers is the story of a vital, complex and engaging woman, that sheds new light on women's political and social history.
We Have Come to Stay: American Women and Political Parties, 1880-1960 (1999) 
Seventeen essays on women in partisan politics before the modern era by Melanie Gustafson, Kristie Miller and Elisabeth Israels Perry. These stories show that women's participation in political parties has been much more lengthy and varied that previously thought. They show the diversity of women's political commitment, loyalties and tactics.
Isabella Greenway and Eleanor Roosevelt had parallel lives in many ways: both lost fathers at the age of nine, both cared for invalid husbands, both actively participated in public life. Isabella was Arizona's sole member of the US House of Representatives during the New Deal, while Eleanor presided over the White House. Both lobbied FDR for more liberal social policy. Their 50-year correspondence is an unusual chapter in the history of women in national politics, and offers rich vignettes of women's lives in the first half of the twentieth century. |
In 1993 I was in graduate school, taking a course in women's history. The young male professor shocked me by saying that "After women won the vote in 1920, they did nothing with it." But he was wrong. Women were very active in partisan politics before and after that time. Here are some of their stories.
Quick Links |