Margaret Chase Smith and the struggle for political legitimacy, 1920s-1950s /
Few women have been as successful in American electoral politics as Margaret Chase Smith, former United States Senator from Maine. During her Congressional career (1940-1973), Smith became the first woman elected to both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, as well as the first woman considered for...
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| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
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[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
2000.
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| Online Access: | http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=728409551&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=2945&RQT=309&VName=PQD |
| Summary: | Few women have been as successful in American electoral politics as Margaret Chase Smith, former United States Senator from Maine. During her Congressional career (1940-1973), Smith became the first woman elected to both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, as well as the first woman considered for Presidential nomination by the convention of a major American political party. Although political scientists and historians have written extensively about female political candidates in the past twenty years, none can account for Smith's extraordinary success. This project explores the strategies used by Smith to legitimate and to expand her participation in an electoral arena still dominated by men. It analyzes Smith's official papers and the papers of many of her political colleagues to chart the trajectory of a public career rooted in traditional assumptions about the presumed moral superiority of women. Finally, it evaluates the degree to which Smith successfully manipulated these stereotypes in both her pre-Congressional as well as Congressional career and considers the inherent risks to such an approach to male dominated electoral politics. |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major Subject: History". |
| Physical Description: | ix, 250 leaves ; 28 cm. Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilm Inc. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-249). |