Review

General Books

Once the most powerful woman in American politics, Margaret Chase Smith, profoundly influenced a broad range of military, foreign, and domestic policies during her thirty-three years in Congress. She was also the first woman to earn a seat in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The second biography of Smith to come out within the past few years, Janann Sherman's No Place for a Woman is the first work to examine how gender shaped the Maine legislator's impact on American politics and American women. As much a description of how women negotiated power in an era when public life belonged to men, as a biography of Smith, this is an engaging book.	1
However, Smith was a fascinating character. Brought up in a conservative working-class family in rural Maine, Smith showed determination and ambition almost from the cradle. After graduating from high school, she spent a few years working at a newspaper and received basic training in political leadership as a member of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women. Following a long courtship, she married Clyde Smith, a much-senior politician who taught her the intricacies and practical machinery of government. Although the marriage was happy, Smith herself described it as a business arrangement, saying that their business was politics. As her husband's health began to fail, Smith traveled on his behalf. She had never surrendered her individual identity and the speeches that she gave often reflected her opinions instead of his, most notably when it came to support for an increased military. By the time of her husband's death, Smith had become an experienced politician and she combined her knowledge with his coattails to win election to congress in 1940. Despite her commitment to a firm national defense policy, her opposition during the campaign persisted in contending that politics was a man's job. Throughout her Congressional career, this same charge that women had no place in government would bedevil Smith.	2
As the representative of Maine's Second District, Smith had the problem of being among the very few women in the House, but this situation proved to be an advantage with the public because the public then tended to perceive women as above "politics as usual." A Republican, Smith avoided strict adherence to party dogma, thus enhancing her status with Maine voters who had traditionally placed great value upon individualism and self-confidence. Smith shared the values of her Yankee constituency and became noted for frankness, honesty, integrity, and courage. By this point, she had developed a set of self-imposed rules for success – be feminine, be friendly but not too friendly, and don't demand special privileges. Accepting the conventions that bound her sex, Smith was never a feminist and later denied that she ever saw herself as a woman. In her mind, she was solely the representative from Maine. In fact, despite her denials, Smith benefited from an atmosphere that heightened the importance of women in the public sphere. World War II defined Smith's House career. As she worked on a variety of military and homefront issues, she represented her sex in the media, the committee room, and on the House floor. Smith's sensitivity to gender discrimination, heightened through many years in the workplace, led her to pursue a series of measures during and after the war to equalize opportunities for women. She became the first congresswoman to publicly endorse the Equal Rights Amendment and had her greatest success with the Women's Armed Service Integration Act of 1948 that gave women permanent status, thereby allowing them to pursue military careers. After eight years in Congress, Smith won a seat in the Senate. A moderate with a long record of distaste for arrogance, Smith gave the first major speech against Senator Joseph McCarthy. Although she never wrote much legislation, she rose to serve on the Senate's most prestigious committees, Armed Services and Appropriations. In 1964, Smith became the first woman to seek the nomination for the presidency by a major party. In 1972, increasingly out of touch with her constituents and hurt by her defense of Nixon's Vietnam policies, Smith lost her seat. She would live until 1995.	3
Sherman has written both a superb biography of Smith and a fine political history of the post-New Deal era. The book does not presuppose much knowledge of this time and clearly explains many of the heated debates of the day, such as McCarthyism and Vietnam, but it is weaker in its coverage of the growing feminist movement. It would be suitable for advanced undergraduates.	4
Ohio State University Caryn E. Neumann

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