During her one term as a New York Congresswoman,
Winifred Stanley tirelessly championed women’s rights.
The former prosecutor and the first female assistant district
attorney in Erie County, New York, urged Americans
to contemplate and begin planning for the imperatives
of peacetime demobilization and new international
responsibilities after World War II.
Winifred Stanley was born on August 14, 1909, in the
Bronx, New York. The eldest of six children, she was raised
by her mother, Mary, who once was an English and a music
teacher, and her father, architect John Francis Stanley,
in Buffalo, New York. Winifred Stanley graduated from
Lafayette High School and earned her bachelor’s degree with
honors from the University of Buffalo in 1930. Stanley went
on to receive her LLB and JD from the same institution in
1933, graduating first in her class. In 1934 she commenced
her law practice.
Stanley’s reputation as a lawyer was impeccable, but
her greatest precongressional accomplishment proved to
be the root of her future defense of women’s rights while
serving in Congress. When going to court one morning,
she found the courtroom closed to women because of
the nature of the crime being tried. She considered this
an intolerable affront to women, especially because
her gender also had been barred from New York juries,
regardless of the crime. Stanley considered jury duty
“second in importance only to the right to vote” and
mobilized women’s clubs, church societies, and political
organizations to press for women’s right to participate in
the courtroom as citizen peers.1 Her actions not only won
the right for participation on a jury panel for women in
New York but also caught the attention of then District
Attorney Leo J. Hagerty. He subsequently named 28-yearold
Stanley the first female assistant district attorney of
Erie County.
Following the 1940 Census, New York stood to lose
two seats in Congress. The Republican Party searched for
an effective short-term Representative to win the state’s
At-Large seat slated for elimination. Once redistricting
occurred, their ideal candidate would choose not to run
against a higher-ranking Republican in the following
election. Winifred Stanley, by then a successful assistant
district attorney, was the perfect choice. Stanley was elected
to the 78th Congress (1943–1945) in 1942, winning in a
landslide and topping eight other candidates with a final
total of nearly two million votes.2
With a strong legal background, she sought a spot on
the Judiciary Committee. Despite her qualifications, the
Congresswoman was denied a position because she lacked
seniority and because sexism still prevailed among her
mostly male colleagues. James W. Wadsworth Jr., a New
York Representative in charge of committee assignments,
flatly opposed women in the workplace. He believed that,
“a woman’s place is in the home.”3 Other Republican leaders
seemed disinclined to assist Stanley, perhaps because of her
short-term status.4 Instead of the Judiciary Committee, she
was appointed to the Patents and Civil Service committees,
both lower-rung panels.5
The imminent end of World War II created the challenge
for the 78th Congress to provide for victory and plan for
the subsequent peace. Citing the overwhelming support of
her constituents, Stanley supported economist Beardsley
Ruml’s plan in 1943—a suggestion to forgive all 1942
federal income taxes, while instating a withholding tax on
all 1943 wages.6 The withheld tax would allow for a quick
source of revenue for the federal government’s war effort,
and Americans would not have to pay the previous year’s
taxes alongside their present dues.
Stanley also gained a reputation for being a pragmatic
postwar planner who was more interested in the “prose”
of the readjustment to peacetime, than in the “poetry” of
victory.7 She commented that, “Maintaining peace is like
maintaining democracy. It’s a full time job.”8 On January 24,
1944, Stanley introduced a concurrent resolution calling for
a special joint committee to deal with postwar employment.
Citing the national problem of returning soldiers who would
flood the job market, she insisted that the committee be
bipartisan and consist of Members from different parts of the
country.9 In a speech on the House Floor, she also proposed
a resolution in support of an American delegation to the
proposed United Nations.10 In addition, Stanley looked
out for the interests of war veterans and her constituents
by pushing for the establishment of more Veterans
Administration hospitals in upstate New York.
Stanley continued to advocate women’s rights during
her congressional service, introducing an equal pay for
equal work bill. On June 19, 1944, Stanley proposed a
bill to amend the National Labor Relations Act to make it
unlawful “to discriminate against any employee, in the rate
of compensation paid, on account of sex.”11 She wanted to
maintain in “peacetime the drive and energy which women
have contributed to the war effort” and further declared
that, “we shall be paying only lip service to those glorious
and fundamental guarantees of our nation’s heritage.”12
She vigorously worked for the Equal Rights Amendment
(ERA) to both the U.S. Congress and the New York state
constitution. Along with Margaret Chase Smith of Maine,
Stanley was one of the first House Members to push for
a renewed effort at passing ERA in 1943, the twentieth
anniversary of its introduction in the House.13 In addition,
she argued that women should be commissioned as surgeons
in the U.S. Army. “It has often been remarked that this is
a ‘man’s world,’” she once noted, “It’s ‘our world,’ and this
battered old universe needs and will need the best brains
and the ability of both men and women.”14 Stanley also
introduced a joint resolution calling for a constitutional
amendment to eliminate the poll tax, and she backed
increasing wages for postal employees.15
In line with her party, Congresswoman Stanley was a
vocal critic of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration’s
New Deal programs. During the 1944 campaign, while
losing her own seat to reapportionment, she nevertheless
remained busy, taking to the campaign trail in 15 states to
urge election of the GOP presidential candidate, New York
Governor Thomas E. Dewey. During one rally, Stanley told
the crowd: “American voters are sick of the New Deal’s
mismanagement, which results in two agencies doing the
work of one. They are tired of the countless alphabetical
agencies and bureaus which have sprung up like mushrooms.
They want the alphabet given back to the children. They
want the Government of this country restored to the
people. They want intelligence and integrity restored to the
White House.”16 Stanley, however, was not above urging
government intervention when New York’s interests were at
stake. In February 1943, responding to a meat shortage crisis
in New York City, Stanley asked the wartime Office of Price
Administration to aid independent meat packers who were
suffering from high livestock prices.17
Despite her reputation as a tenacious worker, Stanley also
was active in the Washington, DC, social scene. She received
a Fashion Academy Award for being one of the nation’s
best-dressed public women. She also served as an adviser
to the “Eight Girls to Every Man” club, an organization
finding homes and proper social engagements for young
women working for the federal government.18 Rumor linked
Stanley romantically with Republican Whip, Congressman
Leslie Arends of Illinois. Both parties publicly denied any
such relationship.19
After leaving Congress in 1945, Stanley accepted
an appointment in New York Governor Dewey’s
administration. She was later appointed counsel for the
State Employees Retirement System and subsequently
returned to the position of assistant district attorney, this
time in the Albany office of the state law department. She
retired from state service in 1979 but remained in private
practice until 1986. After a brief illness, Winifred Stanley
died on February 29, 1996, in Kenmore, New York.20
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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