In 2016 the Democratic Party was the first major party to nominate a woman for president of the United States. The nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, won almost 3 million more votes than her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, but lost the Electoral College vote to him. The Democratic Party was also the first of the two major parties to nominate a woman for vice president of the United States. In addition, Democratic U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California became the highest-ranking woman in the American government in 2007 when she became Speaker of the U.S. House, the first woman to hold the office. The Democratic Party was the first of the two major parties to have a woman chair its national committee and the first to have a second woman chair; Jean Westwood was the first woman (1974) and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida is the second (2011-2016).

After women gained suffrage rights in 1920, women leaders in the party began a long crusade to gain a share of the power and a voice in the decision-making process. Several women have emerged as innovative and dynamic leaders in the party and have created opportunities for other women in it.

In 1900, the first woman attended a Democratic National Convention as a delegate, and the first woman served on a convention committee in 1916, the year the party created a Women’s Division. Women’s formal entrance into the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the party’s governing board, began in 1919, when the party created the position of associate member. Associate members were appointed by each state committee chair, one for each state, comparable to national committeemen. Associate members had no vote but could voice their opinions in DNC meetings. In 1920, the DNC created the voting position of national committeewoman, replacing associate members. National committeewomen, like national committeemen, had full voting rights, were selected by their home state, and served for four-year terms. Women’s roles, however, were limited. Men appreciated their work on the party’s behalf but resisted giving them substantive roles or rewarding their efforts with the appointments and other benefits granted to men.

One of the party’s earliest women leaders was Belle Moskowitz, who was a publicist for Alfred Smith in his three campaigns for governor of New York in 1918, 1920, and 1922 and his presidential bid in 1928. Emily Newell Blair was among the first group of national committeewomen, the first female vice chair of the party in 1921, and the second chair of the Women’s Division. As head of the Women’s Division, she helped organize hundreds of Democratic women’s clubs, conducted training sessions, and called on women to become active in the political party and to run for public office.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, two women, Eleanor Roosevelt and Molly Dewson, formed a political partnership that significantly changed women’s roles and influence in the party. They shared a background in the social reform movement, developed a deep and lasting friendship, and became a powerful political force. Roosevelt recruited Dewson to Democratic Party politics, and the two women successfully organized women to support Franklin Roosevelt’s gubernatorial campaigns in 1928 and 1930 and his 1932 presidential campaign. One of their innovations was known as “rainbow fliers,” campaign literature printed on colored paper, which were first used during the gubernatorial campaigns. They then sent millions of the fliers to women during the presidential campaign, a strategy that men in the party later adopted.

Following Franklin Roosevelt’s election to the presidency, Eleanor Roosevelt and Dewson worked to enhance women’s roles in government and in the party. After agreeing to head the Women’s Division of the party, Dewson reportedly arrived in Washington, D.C., with a list of 60 women for top government positions and worked to gain appointments for them. Among her more notable achievements was Franklin Roosevelt’s choice for secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet. Dewson also won approval of a federal program for unemployed women, a remarkable achievement during the Depression, when women were being moved out of jobs to make them available for men.

In addition to expanding women’s roles within the Roosevelt administration, Dewson increased women’s effectiveness within the party by training them and then utilizing their skills to benefit the party. For example, Dewson trained women across the country to explain the benefits of the New Deal to voters. With what some have called an avalanche of colored paper, Dewson regularly distributed information to women in the party, notifying them of new programs and projects and the progress of existing ones. Having demonstrated the usefulness of women party members, Eleanor Roosevelt and Dewson gained equal representation for women on the party’s 1936 platform committee and won eight slots as party vice chairs for women, the same number as men.

The 1940 convention brought the first debate on the Equal Rights Amendment in the party’s Resolutions and Platform Committee. At that time, Eleanor Roosevelt, along with many other women in the New Deal and women in the trade unions, opposed the measure, fearing that it would end protective labor legislation for women. Rejecting the amendment, the committee approved “the principle of equality of opportunity for women.”

The 1944 Democratic National Convention changed its position and endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment. Also at that convention, Dorothy Vredenburgh became secretary of the Democratic National Committee, the first female officer in either party. She served until 1989.

By the 1948 convention, Eleanor Roosevelt had shifted her attention to the international arena, and Molly Dewson had retired from politics. India Edwards emerged as a leader, particularly at the 1948 national convention, where she defined inflation as a women’s issue and pointed to the problems the escalating costs of food and clothing created for family budgets. Like Dewson before her, Edwards organized women to support the party’s candidate, President Harry Truman, and again like Dewson, Edwards recommended women to serve in the administration. Edwards was influential in obtaining several appointments for women, including Georgia Neese Clark as the first female treasurer of the United States and Eugenie Moore Anderson as the United States’ first female ambassador, both in 1949. In 1951, Truman offered Edwards the position of chair of the party as a reward for her labors and in recognition of her abilities. She declined, believing that men in the party would not accept a female chairperson.

The party eliminated the Women’s Division in 1952, deciding that the time had come to integrate women into the larger party structure. Women protested the change, however, fearing that their role in the party would be diminished rather than enlarged. Women were less visible in the party for the balance of the decade, but a Republican held the presidency and the prevailing climate of opinion encouraged women to find their places in their homes rather than in public life.

At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, African American Fannie Lou Hamer captured the nation’s attention during her appeal for justice before the party’s committee. In her testimony, Hamer described the indignities and the beatings she had endured as a leader of the civil rights movement in the South. Her televised speech electrified the nation, but the credentials committee seated the official all-white delegation rather than Hamer’s Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegates. Four years later, Hamer was one of the 22 African American delegates from Mississippi at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Following the 1968 convention, the party began a period of reform, including national rules for the selection of convention delegates, and guidelines that called for “reasonable representation” of various groups, including women. As preparations began for the 1972 convention, the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) argued that since women comprised more than 50 percent of the population in most states, “reasonable representation” meant that a majority of the delegates from most states would be women. Party leaders interpreted the guidelines less strictly but agreed that state delegations with few women in them would have to show that the imbalance was not the result of discrimination. Some states complied with the guidelines, and delegations from other states faced challenges before the credentials committee, resulting in a significant change in the percentage of women at the 1972 convention. Thirteen percent of the delegates to the 1968 convention had been women; in 1972, women constituted 40 percent of the delegates to the convention. An effort to require equal representation of women at the 1976 convention failed.

At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, Doris Meissner, NWPC executive director, and other staff members set up an office and held informational sessions with delegates throughout the convention. The NWPC wanted four items included in the party platform: reproductive rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, educational equity, and equal pay. The platform did not include the reproductive rights plank, but it did include the other three issues.

The 1972 convention was also notable for two women’s efforts to become the party’s nominees, one for president and the other for vice president. For the first time in the party’s history, an African American woman, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm of New York, ran for the presidential nomination. Chisholm’s campaign had little promise from the beginning, but she received 152 votes on the first ballot. During the convention, a campaign to nominate Frances (Sissy) Farenthold for the vice presidency developed, and NWPC members organized to help her. Farenthold received 404 votes.

Immediately after the convention, Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern proposed a new slate of officers for the Democratic National Committee, including Jean Westwood of Utah for chairperson of the party. When Westwood became the party’s chair, she was the first woman to hold the position in either of the two major parties. Following the fall elections and McGovern’s defeat, Robert Strauss challenged Westwood for the position of chair and won.

Between the 1972 and 1976 conventions, state party chairpersons expressed their objections to what they described as a quota system for women, minorities, and youth, resulting in a new reform commission. Despite feminists’ objections, new rules were implemented that softened the party’s policies regarding delegate selection. Only 36 percent of the delegates to the 1976 Democratic National Convention were women.

Women in the NWPC formalized their work within the parties by creating task forces for members of each party. During the 1976 convention, the Democratic Women’s Task Force regularly met with delegates, focusing their efforts on passing the equal division rule, which would require 50 percent of the delegates to be women. When likely presidential nominee Jimmy Carter objected to it, the task force members agreed to drop the equal division rule in exchange for his support for the Equal Rights Amendment and a promise that he would appoint women to significant posts in his presidential campaign and administration. Later, the party adopted rules guaranteeing women equal division for the 1980 Democratic National Convention. One of the most compelling moments of the 1976 convention was Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan’s keynote address. The first Democratic woman and the first African American to make an important speech to a national convention, her oratory and her message captivated Americans across the country.

During the Carter administration, the Democratic National Committee resurrected the Women’s Division, which had been dissolved in 1952. Iowan Lynn Cutler, who had earlier run for Congress, served as a party vice chair and ran the division. In 1985, the party again closed the division, which meant that it no longer had its own staff or budget. Cutler remained responsible for women’s activities in addition to other areas.

At the 1980 Democratic National Convention, Democratic Party feminists established themselves as a force within the party, even though their leaders did not uniformly support the party’s nominee, incumbent President Jimmy Carter. Almost 50 percent of the delegates were women, and about 20 percent of the delegates belonged to the NWPC or the National Organization for Women (NOW). The party platform included strong ERA and pro-choice planks.

By the 1984 convention, the Democratic Party had aligned itself with feminist issues, a position that contrasted with that of the Republican Party, which had essentially repudiated feminist issues. With the Democratic Party’s allegiance to feminist issues established, feminists turned their attention to nominating a woman for vice president. Before the convention opened, likely Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale announced that Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro would be his running mate. Mondale and Ferraro lost in the November election, but her presence on the ticket gave unprecedented visibility to an American political woman.

The contrasts on women’s issues that developed between the two major parties in the 1970s became heightened in the 1980s and by the 1990s were firmly established. The Democratic Party had accepted the feminist agenda, and equal representation within the delegations had become well established. The gender gap, with women more likely to vote for Democrats than Republicans, had become so large in congressional and presidential races that the margins contributed to the elections of members of Congress and of President Bill Clinton. Women continued to favor Democratic presidential nominees in 2000 and 2004, but did not provide a winning margin. In the 2008 elections, however, women provided the presidential candidate Barack Obama with a seven-point gender gap and the winning margin.

See also: Abortion; Anderson, Eugenie Moore; Blair, Emily Newell; Chisholm, Shirley Anita St. Hill; Clark Gray, Georgia Neese; Clinton, Hillary Rodham; Dewson, Mary (Molly) Williams; Congress, Women in; Education Amendments of 1972, Title IX; Education, Women and; Edwards, India Moffett; Equal Rights Amendment; Ferraro, Geraldine Anne; Hamer, Fannie Lou Townsend; Jordan, Barbara Charline; League of Women Voters; Meissner, Doris Marie; National Organization for Women; National Women’s Political Caucus; Nineteenth Amendment; Pelosi, Nancy; President and Vice President, Women Candidates for; Roosevelt, Eleanor; Wasserman Schultz, Debbie; Westwood, Frances Jean Miles

References: Breckenridge, Women in the Twentieth Century (1933); Feit, “Organizing for Political Power: The National Women’s Political Caucus” (1979); Freeman, “Women at the 1988 Democratic Convention” (1988); National Women’s Political Caucus, Democratic Women Are Wonderful (1980).