In 1984 Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro secured the
nomination as the first woman vice presidential candidate
on a major party ticket. Representative Ferraro’s pragmatism
and political skill, coupled with her close relationships with
top Washington Democrats, allowed her rapid climb up the
House leadership ladder. While serving in Congress, Ferraro
pursued a liberal, feminist agenda without ignoring the
concerns of her conservative district and while working with
her mostly male colleagues.
The daughter of Italian immigrants Dominick and
Antonetta Ferraro, Geraldine Anne Ferraro was born on
August 26, 1935, in Newburgh, New York. The youngest
child and only girl in the family, Geraldine was born shortly
after her older brother Gerald, for whom she was named,
died in a car accident.1
Dominick Ferraro died from a heart
attack in 1943. Antonetta Ferraro moved her three children
to the Bronx, where she worked to send her daughter to
Marymount Catholic School in Tarrytown, New York.
Geraldine Ferraro excelled in academics, skipping the sixth
through eighth grades and graduating early from high
school in 1952. She earned a full scholarship to attend
Marymount College in New York City, graduating with
a BA in English in 1956.2
While teaching in New York public schools, Ferraro attended night school at Fordham
University and earned her law degree in 1960. On July 16,
a week after graduation, she married a real-estate broker,
John Zaccaro; Ferraro kept her maiden name as a tribute
to her mother.3
She practiced law part-time while raising
their three children: Donna, John, and Laura.4
In 1974
Ferraro’s cousin, District Attorney Nicholas Ferraro,
offered her the position of assistant district attorney in
Queens, New York. Geraldine Ferraro was later transferred
to the Special Victims Bureau in 1975, where she quickly
earned a reputation for her tenacity and talent in the
courtroom.5
Ferraro later said her work in the special
victims bureau changed her political views from moderate
to liberal. Finding the work draining and citing unequal pay
at the district attorney’s office, she left in 1978, and set her
sights on Congress.6
After serving as the U.S. Representative in a Queens,
New York, district for nearly 30 years, Democratic
Congressman James Joseph Delaney announced his
retirement in 1978. The district was ethnically and
economically diverse but the bulk of its population
consisted of white middle-class and blue-collar workers,
a setting that inspired Archie Bunker’s neighborhood in the popular television show, All in the Family. Although
formerly a bastion for Roosevelt and Kennedy Democrats,
the district had become increasingly conservative.7
Labeled
a liberal feminist and lacking the support of local
Democratic leaders, Ferraro faced long odds when she
sought Delaney’s vacant seat.8
Capitalizing on her Italian
background and running on a platform of increased law
and order, support for the elderly, and neighborhood
preservation, she secured the party nomination with 53
percent of the vote in a three-way battle against Thomas
Manton, a city councilman who had the support of the
local Democratic leadership, and Patrick Deignan, a
popular candidate of Irish descent.9
Ferraro moved on to a heated campaign in the general
election against former Republican State Assemblyman
Alfred DelliBovi. She quickly went on the offensive,
adopting the slogan, “Finally, A Tough Democrat,” when
her opponent criticized her decision to send her children
to private schools.10 After Ferraro appealed to the national
party for help in the close race, Speaker of the House
Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. of Massachusetts pressured the
local Democratic leadership to lend their support.11 She
ultimately defeated DelliBovi with 54 percent of the vote
earning a seat in the 96th Congress (1979–1981). As the
first Congresswoman from Queens, she also was re-elected
to two subsequent Congresses, winning in 1980 and 1982
with 58 and 78 percent of the vote, respectively.12
One of Ferraro’s greatest challenges in Congress was
balancing her own liberal views with the conservative values
of her constituents. Especially in her first two terms, she
remained mindful of the needs of the citizens in her district.
Assigned to the Post Office and Civil Service Committee
for the 96th and 97th Congresses (1979–1983), Ferraro
earned a spot on the Public Works and Transportation
Committee in 1981.13 When appointed to the Select
Committee on Aging in 1979, a post she held until 1985,
she organized a forum in her district to discuss problems
concerning housing, health care, and social support systems
for the New York elderly.14 In deference to the sentiments
in her district, Ferraro voted in favor of some conservative
legislation, such as a proposed constitutional amendment
banning mandatory busing for school desegregation, tuition
tax credits for private schools, and school prayer.15 Early
in her career, she supported a strong national defense
posture.16 Ferraro later broke from the Democratic Party
leadership when she voted against a 1982 tax increase.
Ferraro generally remained loyal to the Democratic
agenda, however, voting with her party 78 percent of the
time in her first term and following the party line even
more closely during her second and third terms.17 She was
particularly critical of the Ronald Reagan administration’s
policies towards women, disdaining what she called the
White House’s efforts to glorify the nonworking mother,
stating, “I don’t disparage that [being a stay-at-home
mom], I did it myself. . . . But not every woman can afford
to do that.”18 Ferraro looked after the economic needs of
women, sponsoring the Economic Equity Act in 1981.
The legislation reformed pension options for women,
protecting the rights of widows and divorcées and allowing
homemakers to save as much as their working spouses
in individual retirement accounts.19 One of the most
controversial women’s issues, reproductive rights, remained
a strong personal issue for Ferraro. Despite criticism by
conservative Catholics and even her own mother, Ferraro
supported abortion rights, vowing to not let her religious
beliefs as a Catholic interfere with her constitutional
obligation to a separate church and state.20
It was her ability to push her own feminist agenda
without abandoning her conservative constituents
that caught the attention of her fellow Democratic
colleagues and allowed her rapid rise within the party
leadership. Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat from
Massachusetts, summed up her political skill, observing that
“[Ferraro] manages to be threatening on issues without being
threatening personally.”21 Speaker O’Neill observed Ferraro’s
seemingly natural political ability and took an immediate
liking to the Congresswoman, whom he described as being
“solid as a rock.”22 He admired her forthright yet pragmatic
style and found her liberal policies, particularly her pro-labor
stance, to be parallel with his own.23
Congresswoman Ferraro used her friendship with
Speaker O’Neill to open doors for herself and other
female colleagues. At the start of the 98th Congress
(1983–1985), she sought a position on the prestigious Ways
and Means Committee. Ferraro was passed over, mainly
because New York was already heavily represented on that
committee.24 To the surprise of many congressional veterans,
however, O’Neill appointed her to the prominent Budget
Committee. In addition to Ferraro’s assignment, other
Congresswomen received their preferred appointments.
Defending the increase in appointments of women to
important committees, Speaker O’Neill claimed that their placement was long overdue and was quoted as saying,
“They [women] hadn’t sought those spots before.”25
Ferraro’s rise within the Democratic ranks was further
evidenced by her election as Secretary of the Democratic
Caucus in 1980 and again in 1982. Historically an
honorific position typically held by women Members,
party rules had changed such that the Secretary now sat on
the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, the panel
responsible for making committee assignments and forming
party strategy.26 Ferraro also increased her visibility within
the party ranks by playing a prominent role in the 1980
Democratic National Convention. At the 1980 convention,
Ferraro introduced the keynote speaker, Representative
Morris King Udall of Arizona.27 Two years later in 1982, she
was instrumental in achieving automatic delegate status to
the 1984 Democratic National Convention for three-fifths
of the Democrats serving in the House and the Senate, an
effort to give professional politicians a chance to unify and
shape the party’s platform. In 1984 Ferraro became the
first woman to chair the Democratic platform committee.
Although she faced the arduous task of creating a unified
platform for the upcoming presidential contest, the position
afforded Ferraro invaluable media exposure and distinction
in the Democratic Party.28
During the 1984 presidential campaign, political
strategists and feminist groups pressured the Democratic
Party to nominate a woman to the ticket. The movement,
which hinged on the belief that selecting a woman
as the vice presidential candidate would energize the
party and help Democrats compete against popular
incumbent President Ronald Reagan by attracting women
voters, gained momentum in the months preceding the
convention.29 As rumors circulated that presidential
candidate Walter Frederick Mondale planned on selecting
a female running mate, the leadership’s favorite, Geraldine
Ferraro, topped a list of Representatives that included
Corinne Claiborne (Lindy) Boggs of Louisiana, Patricia
Schroeder of Colorado, and Barbara A. Mikulski of
Maryland, along with San Francisco Mayor and future U.S.
Senator Dianne Feinstein. On her chances of becoming a
vice presidential nominee, Ferraro remarked, “People are no
longer hiding behind their hands and giggling when they
talk about a woman for national office, and I think that’s
wonderful.”30 In July 1984, Mondale selected Ferraro as
his running mate, making her the first woman to run for
election for a major party on a national ticket.31
Ferraro’s addition to the ballot was expected to appeal
to the diverse audience she represented: women, Italian
Americans, Roman Catholics, and the northeastern voters.
Ultimately, her characteristic pragmatism won her the
nomination. Her gender alone would appeal to women
and progressive voters, but as fellow House Democrat Tony
Coelho of California, commented, Ferraro wasn’t a “threat”
to the Democratic mainstream. Qualifying his statement,
Coelho said, “She is not a feminist with wounds.”32 Still,
some congressional colleagues criticized Ferraro as being too
inexperienced on many important issues, most especially
on foreign policy matters.33 Other women, including
potential candidates Representatives Boggs and Schroeder,
questioned Ferraro’s selection, citing themselves as better
candidates because of their long experience in Washington
politics.34 The campaign momentum stalled when
allegations of financial wrong-doing by her husband John
Zaccaro emerged. In November 1984, the Mondale–Ferraro
ticket was handily defeated by the incumbent Reagan–Bush
team. John Zaccaro later was convicted in February 1985 of
conducting fraudulent real estate transactions.35
After the defeat, Geraldine Ferraro returned to practicing
law. She served as a fellow at the Harvard Institute of
Politics from 1988 until 1992. In addition, she authored
three books about her political career. Ferraro re-entered
electoral politics when she ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992
and 1998. After failing to secure the Democratic Party’s
nomination in both unsuccessful campaigns, Ferraro vowed
to never run again for public office. In 1993 President
William J. (Bill) Clinton appointed her to the United
Nations Human Rights Convention in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ferraro also was appointed vice chair of the U.S. Delegation
to the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing
in September 1995.36 She later worked as president of a
global management consulting firm, and as a television
analyst and syndicated columnist.
After being diagnosed with multiple myeloma,
a dangerous form of blood cancer, in 1998, Ferraro
spoke publicly about her illness and her use of the drug
Thalidomide to treat her condition. In a plea for continued
research on Thalidomide’s effects on her illness, she testified
at a June 2001 Senate hearing. Using herself as an exhibit,
she stated, “I look great, and I feel great, and it’s what early
diagnosis and research can do.”37 Ferraro succumbed to the
disease after a 12-year battle, and passed away on March 26,
2011, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.38
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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