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Efforts to elect a woman to the IEB had begun in 1937 but had failed

until Madar and others began to campaign in 1964 to create a place for a

woman by changing IEB’s constitution and adding an at-large position

with the intent that a woman would fill it. In 1966, Madar won the elec-

tion for the office and became the first woman vice president of UAW and

the first woman elected an international vice president of the union. After

her election to the board, the UAW became more active in women’s issues.

As women became dissatisfied with their lack of power within

unions, Madar led the founding of the Coalition of Labor Union Women

(CLUW) in 1974. The CLUW’s first president, Madar worked to eliminate

all forms of discrimination against women. Following her retirement,

Madar continued to be active in the retirees’ programs.

Born in Sykesville, Pennsylvania, Madar graduated from Eastern

Michigan University in 1938.

See also Abortion; Beal v. Doe

References Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464 (1977).

Malcolm, Ellen Reighley (b. 1947)

Ellen Malcolm founded EMILY’s List, a political action committee (PAC)

to support prochoice Democratic women gubernatorial and congres-

sional candidates, in 1985. Malcolm had concluded that a new funding

strategy was needed to support women candidates after working for Mis-

souri Democrat Harriet Woods’s campaign for the U.S. Senate, a race

Woods lost by 27,000 votes because she could not raise enough money to

keep her television advertisements on the air.

Malcolm enrolled in George Washington University’s master’s of busi-

ness administration program to develop the management and marketing

Malcolm, Ellen Reighley 415

skills she needed to make her proposed PAC successful. She also sought a

distinctive name for the PAC and put together the acronym EMILY, which

stands for “Early Money Is Like Yeast” (it raises the dough). Malcolm ex-

plained: “I want women to be powerful players in the middle, not just a

fringe element.” To reach that goal, Malcolm set EMILY’s annual mem-

bership fee at $100 with the agreement that each member would also con-

tribute at least $100 to two candidates on the organization’s list. She used

the language of the corporate world to describe her mission: “We’ve cre-

ated a product, if you will, that is tailored to women like us, who are over

35, involved in politics. We are political venture capitalists. You’ll rarely

hear me give the typical ‘we’re-mad-at-the-world’ feminist dogma.”

Born in Hackensack, New Jersey, Malcolm earned her bachelor of

arts degree from Hollins College in 1969 and her master’s degree in busi-

ness administration from George Washington University in 1984. From

1971 to 1976, Malcolm worked for Common Cause, serving as an issues

coordinator and then as the southern states coordinator. She became pub-

lic information coordinator for the National Women’s Political Caucus in

1978 and its project director the next year.

See also Abortion; Congress, Women in; EMILY’s List; National Women’s

Political Caucus

References New York Times, 2 May 1993.

Maloney, Carolyn Bosher (b. 1948)

Democrat Carolyn Maloney of New York entered the U.S. House of Rep-

resentatives on 3 January 1993. In her first campaign, Maloney told voters

that there were too many millionaires and not enough women in Con-

gress. Her congressional priorities include improving the foster care sys-

tem, reforming campaign finance laws, protecting Capitol Hill employees

from sexual harassment, and providing full funding for Head Start pro-

grams.

Maloney has passed the Debt Collection Bill, a measure establishing

a computerized tracking system to help uncover wrongdoing in govern-

ment contracting, and a measure to permit elderly people living in public

housing to own household pets. Maloney supports a constitutional

amendment to balance the budget, further defense budget cuts, and new

taxes on gasoline. After she sponsored the Northern Rockies Ecosystem

Protection Act, classifying 16 million acres in five states as wilderness,

some western members of Congress mockingly proposed a countermea-

sure to designate Manhattan, part of which is in Maloney’s district, as a

natural wilderness.

Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, Carolyn Maloney earned her

bachelor of arts degree from Greensboro College in 1968. From 1970 to

416 Maloney, Carolyn Bosher

1977, Maloney was a teacher and an administrator for the New York City

Board of Education. She then held senior staff positions in the New York

state assembly and the New York state Senate from 1977 to 1979 and

served on the New York City Council from 1983 until 1993. While on the

city council, she was the principal author of the New York City Campaign

Finance Act.

See also Abortion; Congress, Women in; Congressional Workplace Compliance

Act of 1995; Sexual Harassment

References Congressional Quarterly, Politics in America 1994 (1993), Politics in

America 1998 (1997); www.house.gov/maloney/.

MANA, a National Latina Organization

Organized in 1975 as the Mexican American Women’s National Associa-

tion, MANA developed when a group of Chicanas living in Washington,

D.C., began gathering for weekend brunches to discuss their exclusion

from the feminist movement’s agenda and their relative invisibility in pol-

icymaking meetings. The founders, many of whom held jobs in the fed-

eral government, in Congress, or with private policymaking groups, con-

cluded that Chicanas needed an organization comparable to those formed

by white and African American women.

In 1975, the organization installed its first elected officers and de-

fined MANA’s goals, which included advocating for issues important to

Chicanas, developing leadership opportunities, creating a national aware-

ness of Chicana concerns, and developing a national communications

network for Chicanas. Later that year, MANA hosted the first national

conference for and by Chicanas.

When the number of unnecessary sterilizations performed on Chi-

canas dramatically increased, MANA convinced policymakers to change

federal regulations to ensure that Mexican American women understood

the surgical process and its consequences and that they received the infor-

mation in their primary language. MANA has called for pharmaceutical

labeling in Spanish and in English, worked for employment opportuni-

ties, and sought appointments to governmental boards and commissions

for Hispanics.

MANA representatives have testified before Congress on domestic

violence and child support enforcement. MANA supports affirmative ac-

tion, reproductive rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, pay equity, and

welfare reform to change policies that hinder women attempting to be-

come economically independent.

See also Abortion; Affirmative Action, Equal Rights Amendment; Pay Equity

References Crocker, MANA: One Dream, Many Voices (1991).

MANA, a National Latina Organization 417

Mankiller, Wilma P. (b. 1945)

Wilma Mankiller served as chief of the

Cherokee Nation from 1985 to 1995, the

first female chief of a major tribe. Born in

Rocky Mountain, Oklahoma, the daughter

of a Caucasian mother and Cherokee fa-

ther, Mankiller’s early years were spent in

Oklahoma. When she was twelve years old,

her family moved to San Francisco as part

of a Bureau of Indian Affairs relocation

program, which sought to end Native

Americans’ status as wards of the federal

government. In 1969, she became active in

the Native American rights movement

when a group of Native Americans took

over the former Alcatraz prison to protest

their treatment by the federal government.

By then married and a mother, Mankiller

did not feel that she could join the demonstrators, but she raised money

for them and visited them. She explained: “Those college students who

participated in Alcatraz articulated a lot of feelings I had that I’d never

been able to express.”

Mankiller attended Skyline College in 1973 and San Francisco State

College from 1973 to 1975 and received her bachelor of arts degree from

Union College in 1977. She did postgraduate work in community plan-

ning at the University of Arkansas in 1979. In 1977, Mankiller and her

husband divorced, and she returned to Oklahoma to claim land that her

grandfather had owned as part of a settlement with the U.S. government.

She worked for the Cherokee Nation as economic stimulus coordinator,

becoming the tribe’s program development specialist in 1979. An auto-

mobile accident that year left Mankiller badly injured, resulting in an ex-

tended hospitalization and a lengthy period of recovery. Her full resump-

tion of her work responsibilities was further delayed when she was

diagnosed with systemic myasthenia gravis, requiring surgery and another

period of recuperation.

With her health restored, Mankiller founded the Community Devel-

opment Department of the Cherokee Nation in 1981 and then directed it.

Through grants, Mankiller obtained money for a number of projects, in-

cluding rehabilitating housing, installing a sixteen-mile-long water line,

and developing Cherokee Gardens, a horticultural operation.

In 1983, Ross Swimmer, the incumbent principal chief of the Chero-

418 Mankiller, Wilma P.

Wilma Mankiller,

former chief of the

Cherokee Nation,

1987 (UPI/Corbis-

Bettmann)

kee Nation, asked Mankiller to be his running mate for deputy chief in the

tribal elections. During the campaign, Mankiller encountered overt sex-

ism that included hate mail, death threats, and having the tires of her car

slashed. When the ticket won, she became the first woman to serve as

deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation. In 1985, Swimmer left to head the

Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., and Mankiller was sworn in

as principal chief, becoming the first woman to hold the office.

Mankiller explained the significance of a woman holding the office:

“Early historians referred to our government as a petticoat government

because of the strong role of the women in the tribe. Then we adopted a

lot of ugly things that were part of the non-Indian world and one of those

things was sexism. This whole system of tribal government was designed

by men. So in 1687 women enjoyed a prominent role, but in 1987 we

found people questioning whether women should be in leadership posi-

tions in the tribe.” Mankiller won the election for a full term in 1987 and

reelection in 1991.

As principal chief, Mankiller protected the traditions and heritage of

her tribe. While overseeing a budget of $76 million and managing a work-

force of almost 1,000 employees, she focused on reducing the unemploy-

ment rate, raising education levels, and improving health care in addition

to her continuing concerns with economic development. Under her lead-

ership, the tribe built a hydroelectric generating facility; obtained funds to

help Cherokee women on welfare become more self-sufficient; and devel-

oped plans for a job corps center, an alcohol treatment facility, and new

health clinics.

The name Mankiller is an old term of respect for Indian warriors

who guarded tribal villages and has been in her family for generations.

When asked about it, she explained: “Some people do earn their names in

native culture. I didn’t, but I don’t always tell people that. Sometimes I just

say that Mankiller is my name, I earned it, and I let ’em wonder.” Her

memoir, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People, was published in 1993.

See also Bonney, Mary Lucinda; Deer, Ada Elizabeth; Jumper, Betty Mae

References H. W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, 1988 (1988); Mankiller

and Wallis, Mankiller (1993); New York Times, 15 December 1985, 4 November

1993.

Mankin, Helen Douglas (1894–1956)

Democrat Helen Mankin of Georgia served in the U.S. House of Represen-

tatives from 12 February 1946 to 3 January 1947. Mankin entered politics

as chief of Georgia’s Child Labor Committee, a group that sought to ratify

the proposed Child Labor Amendment. After unsuccessfully lobbying the

Mankin, Helen Douglas 419

Georgia legislature in 1935, she decided to work on the amendment from

inside the legislature and ran for a seat in it, serving from 1937 to 1946.

During those years, she worked to repeal the poll tax, change registration

laws, improve teachers’ salaries, reform prisons, and adopt the secret bal-

lot. She helped pass a bill permitting women to serve on juries and an-

other allowing women to be appointed their children’s guardians.

When the incumbent congressman resigned, Mankin won the seat in

a special election. In the first election since the end of the poll tax in Geor-

gia, Mankin, who had actively sought the support of African American

voters, was quietly endorsed by that community. Her winning margin

came from predominantly black precincts. Mankin ran in the July 1946

primary for a full term and won the majority of votes, but the state’s

county unit system for determining the victor denied her the nomination.

She began a write-in campaign, but white supremacy groups intimidated

her supporters and she lost the general election. Mankin filed a lawsuit

challenging the county unit system. Her case went to U.S. District Court,

which ruled against her in 1950, as did the U.S. Supreme Court. The rul-

ing was reversed in 1962.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Helen Mankin earned a bachelor of arts

degree from Rockford College in 1917. During World War I, she joined the

American Women’s Hospital Unit, was attached to the French army, and

for thirteen months drove an ambulance in France. She returned to the

United States, earned her bachelor of laws degree from Atlanta Law School

in 1920, and joined the family law firm.

See also Child Labor Amendment; Congress, Women in; State Legislatures,

Women in

References H. W. Wilson, Current Biography: Who’s News and Why, 1946 (1946);

Spritzer, The Belle of Ashby Street (1982).

Margolies-Mezvinsky, Marjorie (b. 1942)

Democrat Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky of Pennsylvania served in the

U.S. House of Representatives from 3 January 1993 to 3 January 1995. A

group of Democratic women recruited Margolies-Mezvinsky to run in a

district that had not elected a Democrat in seventy-six years. Her support

for reproductive rights and for more sensitivity for families in the work-

place contributed to her success.

As Congress worked its way through Democratic president Bill Clin-

ton’s budget in 1993, Margolies-Mezvinsky was the only freshman Demo-

crat who voted against it. She opposed the plan because she thought that

it cut too little spending and had too many tax increases. She intended to

vote against the conference committee bill reconciling the House and Sen-

ate bills because it included essentially the components she had opposed.

420 Margolies-Mezvinsky, Marjorie

Observers questioned where President Clinton would get the votes needed

to pass the bill, and pressure was placed on Democratic members of Con-

gress to vote for the conference committee bill. Anticipating pressure to

vote for it, she considered her options and concluded that if she voted for

it, her political career would be over. When President Clinton telephoned

Margolies-Mezvinsky just before the House voted on the bill, she told him

that she would vote for it only if hers were the deciding vote. At the time

she cast her vote, she decided that her vote would end either her political

career or the president’s. She voted for the conference committee bill.

Margolies-Mezvinsky was defeated in her attempt for a second term.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Margolies-Mezvinsky attended

Skidmore College from 1959 to 1961 and received her bachelor of arts de-

gree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. A local television re-

porter in the early 1960s, Margolies-Mezvinsky is also a best-selling author

and has won five Emmy Awards. She wrote They Came to Stay (1970) about

her experience as the first single woman in the United States to adopt a for-

eign-born child, a Korean. In 1974, she adopted a Vietnamese child.

See also Abortion; Congress, Women in

References Congressional Quarterly, Politics in America 1994 (1993); Margolies-

Mezvinsky, A Woman’s Place . . . the Freshmen Women Who Changed the Face of

Congress (1994).

Married Women’s Property Acts

Until the passage of married women’s property acts in the mid–nine-

teenth century, marriage essentially resulted in a woman’s civil death,

which included the denial of her right to own property. In 1839, Missis-

sippi became the first state to grant married women the right to own

property. The law, like those passed in Maryland in 1843 and Arkansas in

1846, sought to protect family property given to married daughters

through gifts or inheritance, but the measures did not expand women’s

economic autonomy. Their husbands maintained control of the property

and any earnings from it.

The first northern state to pass a married women’s property law,

Michigan in 1844, established a separate estate for the wife that included

personal and real property that she acquired both before and after her

marriage. Other states passed more limited acts that protected a wife’s real

estate from seizure to pay for her husband’s debts.

In the late 1830s, Ernestine Rose, a Polish immigrant, began circulat-

ing petitions in New York for equal property rights for women. Elizabeth

Cady Stanton and other women’s rights advocates joined her in circulat-

ing petitions, educating the public, and talking to legislators for passage of

a bill. In 1848, the State of New York passed a Married Women’s Property

Married Women’s Property Acts 421

Act, the broadest of the acts passed by any state at the time. New York’s law

gave a married woman separate ownership and control of the property

she brought into a marriage and any property she inherited after it. Rose

and Stanton were joined by Susan B. Anthony in the 1850s in their work

to further expand married women’s property rights, resulting in the 1860

Married Women’s Earning Act, which gave married women ownership of

their earnings. Another measure passed that year gave married women a

role in determining their children’s guardianship, power that husbands

had formerly exclusively held. In 1862, the legislature addressed the issue

again and generally returned women’s legal rights to the status they had

been before the 1860 measure.

In the 1840s, Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Vermont,

and Rhode Island passed similar legislation. These property rights laws for

married women were the primary legal change in women’s status in the

nineteenth century. Both women’s rights activists and those opposed to

women’s rights supported property reform as a matter of justice. Oppo-

nents to women’s rights did not anticipate extending the concept of mar-

ried women’s property rights to political or other rights of citizenship.

The acts, however, fueled the debate on women’s rights.

See also Anthony, Susan Brownell; Coverture; Stanton, Elizabeth Cady;

Suffrage

References Matthews, Women’s Struggle for Equality: The First Phase,

1828–1876 (1997).

Martin, Del (b. 1921)

Feminist and lesbian activist Del Martin and her life partner Phyllis Lyon

founded Daughters of Bilitis in 1955, the first national lesbian organiza-

tion, and they founded the organization’s publication, The Ladder. Martin

and Lyon wrote Lesbian/Woman (1972) and Lesbian Love and Liberation

(1973), two of the earliest books written by and about lesbians. Martin

wrote Battered Wives in 1977, the first book on domestic violence pub-

lished in the United States, and became a nationally recognized speaker on

the topic. The first openly gay woman to serve on the National Organiza-

tion for Women’s national board of directors, Martin chaired the organi-

zation’s National Task Force on Battered Women/Household Violence in

the 1970s.

See also Daughters of Bilitis; Lesbian Rights; Lyon, Phyllis; National

Organization for Women

References DeLeon, ed., Leaders from the 1960s: A Biographical Sourcebook

of American Activism (1994).

422 Martin, Del

Martin, Judith Lynn Morley (b. 1939)

Republican Lynn Martin of Illinois served

in the U.S. House of Representatives from

3 January 1981 to 3 January 1991. She held

the leadership position of vice chair of the

House Republican Conference in the 99th

and 100th Congresses (1985–1987 and

1987–1989). President George Bush ap-

pointed her secretary of labor, a position

she held from 1991 to 1993.

Martin entered politics in 1972,

when she won a seat on the Winnebago

County Board, and served on it until

1977, when she entered the Illinois House

of Representatives. Two years later, she

won a seat in the state Senate and served

until 1981, the year she entered Congress.

A fiscal conservative, Congress-

woman Martin supported reproductive

rights, equal rights for women, and

parental leave. She supported an increase in the minimum wage and voted

to override Bush’s veto of the bill. After conducting a survey of congres-

sional office employees and staff that demonstrated that women staffers

were generally relegated to the lowest positions, Martin unsuccessfully

sought to remedy the problem by including congressional employees un-

der the Civil Rights Act of 1964, from which they had been specifically ex-

cluded. Martin became the first woman member of the House Republican

leadership in 1984, when she won election as vice chair of the House Re-

publican Conference. She made her reputation in Congress as an adroit

budget negotiator in 1986, when she was the acting ranking minority

member substituting for an ailing congressman. Martin ran unsuccess-

fully for the U.S. Senate in 1990.

Appointed secretary of the Department of Labor in 1991, Martin

sought to expand the options for pension portability, to strengthen en-

forcement of child labor laws and worker safety laws, to end discrimination

in the workplace, and to improve job training. With the goal of creating a

model workplace, department employees received sexual harassment train-

ing and diversity training. The Glass Ceiling Initiative, a program begun by

Martin, sought to identify barriers to women’s promotion and development

within the workplace. The report from the initiative led Congress to estab-

lish the Glass Ceiling Commission to examine the issue on a larger scale.

Martin, Judith Lynn Morley 423

Representative Lynn

Martin (R-IL), also

secretary of labor

under President

Bush, announced that

she would not seek

the Republican

presidential

nomination, 1996

(Associated Press AP)

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Lynn Martin earned her bachelor of arts

degree from the University of Illinois in 1960. She taught high school En-

glish, government, and economics before entering politics.

See also Abortion; Cabinets, Women in Presidential; Civil Rights Act of 1964,

Title VII; Congress, Women in; Congressional Workplace Compliance Act of

1995; Equal Rights Amendment; Glass Ceiling Commission; State Legislatures,

Women in

References Congressional Quarterly, Cabinets and Counselors: The President and

the Executive Branch (1997); H. W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, 1989

(1989).

Martin, Marion E. (1900–1987)

Founder of the National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW),

Marion Martin began her work for the Republican National Committee

(RNC) in 1936, when she became Republican national committeewoman

for Maine as well as assistant chair of the RNC from 1936 to 1946. She

served in the Maine legislature from 1931 to 1938, two terms each in the

Maine House of Representatives and the Maine Senate.

In her role as assistant chairperson, Martin toured the United States in

the fall of 1937 to assess the many independent Republican women’s clubs

in the country. She concluded that they were “frequently misguided and ut-

terly ineffectual” at supporting the party’s candidates and recommended

forming a national umbrella organization. She envisioned creating a polit-

ical machine out of the existing clubs and using them to organize more

clubs. To appeal to women, she designed a program that combined social

activities with political education, using materials developed in her Wash-

ington, D.C., office. She organized the first meeting in 1937, convinced un-

certain delegates of the merits of unifying under the NFRW, and officially

launched the organization in 1938.

Martin also worked to increase women’s visibility in the party, offer-

ing party leaders the names of women qualified to hold positions in it. She

sought passage of fifty-fifty rules that would require all state and national

party committees to have equal numbers of women and men on them.

She encouraged the party’s leadership to select women for political ap-

pointments and to support their candidacies for elected offices.

Born in Kingman, Maine, Martin attended Wellesley College for a

year and a half before withdrawing because she had contracted tubercu-

losis. She received her bachelor of arts degree from the University of

Maine in 1935. After leaving the RNC, Martin served as commissioner of

labor and industry for the State of Maine.

See also National Federation of Republican Women; Republican Party, Women

in the

424 Martin, Marion E.