Smith, Margaret Chase, 1897–1995, U.S. senator from Maine (1949–73), b. Skowhegan, Maine. She taught school briefly and then worked (1919–28) on the Skowhegan weekly newspaper. In 1930 she married Clyde Smith, the publisher of the paper, and upon his election as a U.S. representative served in Washington as his secretary, researcher, and office manager. Active in Republican party politics, she was elected after the death of her husband in 1940 to finish his unexpired term, becoming Maine's first congresswoman. She was reelected four times. Noted for her integrity and independence, she was elected U.S. senator in 1948 and reelected in 1954, 1960, and 1966. She was unexpectedly defeated in the 1972 election by her Democratic opponent.

Bibliography

See biography by J. Sherman (2000).

Smith, Margaret Chase

orig. Margaret Madeline Chase

(born Dec. 14, 1897, Skowhegan, Maine, U.S.—died May 29, 1995, Skowhegan) U.S. politician. She served as secretary to her husband, Clyde Smith, after he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican in 1936. When he suffered a heart attack in 1940, he urged voters to elect her to the office. She became the first woman to win election to both the House (1940–49) and the Senate (1949–73). Though a staunch anticommunist, she was the first Republican senator to condemn the tactics of Joseph McCarthy, delivering a memorable “Declaration of Conscience” speech on the Senate floor in 1950. Her opinion that Pres. John F. Kennedy should use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union prompted Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to dub her “the devil in disguise of a woman.” She retired from politics after her defeat in 1972. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1989.