Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the first female presidential nominee for a major political party comes more than 50 years after a Maine woman had the moxie to seek the nomination herself.
Margaret Chase Smith, a moderate Republican from Skowhegan, known for her “Declaration of Conscience” speech in 1950, was the first woman whose name was placed in nomination for the presidency at a major party’s convention, in 1964.
Despite receiving the support of only 27 delegates and losing the nomination to Senate colleague Barry Goldwater, she had made history.
Over the course of her 30-year political career, she set several “firsts” for women in politics.
Smith entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1940 by winning a special election after the death of her husband, Clyde Smith.
After four terms in the House, she won election to the Senate in 1948, becoming the first woman elected to both houses of Congress.
On June 1, 1950, she became the first member of the Senate to denounce the tactics used by colleague Joseph McCarthy in his anti-communist crusade.
In a speech on the Senate Floor, she said McCarthy had “debased” Senate deliberations “through the selfish political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance and intolerance.” She said, “The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as ‘Communists’ or ‘Fascists’ by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.”
In 1960, she and her opponent, Democrat Lucia M. Cormier, made history by taking part in the first all-women contest for a U.S. Senate seat.
Smith and New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm are the subject of a recent post on the Unwritten Record Blog of The National Archives titled “Cracking the Glass Ceiling: Margaret Chase Smith and Shirley Chisholm.”
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