Maryon Pittman Allen, who briefly succeeded her husband,
James Allen, upon his sudden death, is one of the few
widows who remarked frankly about the shock and pain
associated with serving under such circumstances. A
journalist who married into politics, she was appointed
to the U.S. Senate in 1978 by Alabama Governor
George Wallace.
Maryon Pittman was born on November 30, 1925,
in Meridian, Mississippi, one of four children raised by
John D. and Tellie Chism Pittman. The family moved to
Birmingham, Alabama, the following year, where John
Pittman opened a tractor dealership. Maryon Pittman
attended public schools and then went to the University of
Alabama from 1944 to 1947. While still attending college,
she married Joshua Mullins on October 17, 1946. The
couple raised three children: Joshua, John, and Maryon, but
were divorced in 1959. As a single mother, Maryon Pittman
was employed as an insurance agent and then as a journalist,
working as the women’s section editor for five local weeklies
in Alabama. As a staff writer for the Birmingham News, she
took an assignment in 1964 to interview James Browning
Allen, a widower and then the lieutenant governor of
Alabama, who had just delivered a speech before the
Alabama Federation of Women’s Clubs. Four months later,
on August 7, 1964, James Allen and Maryon Pittman
married; Allen brought two children from his previous
marriage, James Jr. and Mary.
When Alabama Senator Joseph Lister Hill chose not to
seek re-election to the 91st Congress (1969–1971), James
Allen sought and won election to his seat. A longtime
Alabama state legislator, Senator Allen served on the
Judiciary Committee. He became a master of parliamentary
procedure, helping to revive the filibuster. A conservative
Democrat, Senator Allen fought the creation of a federal
consumer protection agency, taxpayer financing of federal
campaigns, and the 1978 treaties which ceded U.S. control
of the Panama Canal. Allen, the New York Times observed,
“was a valued ally in any fight, a man who could out-talk
or outmaneuver many of the wisest and most experienced
politicians in Washington…. If he did not beat the
opposition, he wilted them.”1 California Senator Alan
Cranston once remarked, “He can catch other people
napping, but he’s not sneaky. He just plays hardball within
the rules.”2 The Washington Post wrote that Allen “did not
merely learn Jefferson’s parliamentary manual; he absorbed
it and employed it more doggedly, shrewdly and creatively
than any other senator in years.”3 While her husband
ensconced himself in the Senate, Maryon Allen continued
her journalism career, writing a Washington-based news
column, “The Reflections of a News Hen,” that was
syndicated in Alabama newspapers.
On June 1, 1978, Senator Allen died suddenly of a heart
attack. Alabama Governor George Wallace, with whom
James Allen served as lieutenant governor in the 1960s,
appointed Maryon Allen on June 8, 1978, to succeed her
husband. Wallace also called a special election to coincide
with the general election on November 7, 1978, to fill the
remaining two years of James Allen’s term. Maryon Allen
pledged to “continue to espouse the great principles of
government to which Senator Allen dedicated his life. When
I cast a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate, it will reflect the
philosophy he expressed so eloquently and strongly during
his almost 10 years of service.” She also announced her
intention to run for the two-year term despite widespread
speculation that Governor Wallace (who was ineligible for
gubernatorial re-election) was considering campaigning
for the seat himself. On June 12, 1978, Maryon Allen
was sworn into the U.S. Senate by Vice President Walter
Mondale; Minnesota Senator Muriel Humphrey, widow of
Hubert Humphrey, embraced Allen after the ceremony.4
“I’m trying to do this thing with taste and dignity, I’m not
sure I can do it,” Maryon Allen told the Washington Post after
two months on the job. She also confided that her husband
had made her promise that if his health failed, she would
consider taking his seat in the Senate. “Jim and I found each
other late in life,” she recalled. “We were too close. I feel
like I am an open, bleeding, raw, walking wound. I cover
it up all during the day here in the Senate with a front. Jim
wanted me to. I hate the word widow. But if I hadn’t done
this I would have fallen into the poor pitiful Pearl routine
and felt sorry for myself. Jim wasn’t going to give me that
luxury. He gave me every other one. And, I must admit, at
my age it’s kind of exciting to start a new career.”5 She was
assigned seats on two of her husband’s former committees:
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; and Judiciary. Though
she had lobbied Senate Majority Leader Robert Carlyle Byrd
of West Virginia for a seat on the Rules and Administration
Committee, she did not receive it.6
Perhaps her most important vote during her short
Senate career came in October 1978, when she supported
a proposal by Republican Edwin Jacob (Jake) Garn of
Utah which would have allowed any of the 35 states that
had ratified the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) since
its passage in 1972 to rescind their approval. The Senate
also was considering an extension of the ERA deadline of
March 1979 by an additional three years. Supporters of the
Garn Amendment argued that if the extension was passed
to allow more states to approve then states also should be
allowed to reverse their votes within that same time frame.
The proposal failed by a 54-to-44 vote, clearing the way for
successful passage of the extension.7
Alabama political observers fully expected that retiring
Governor George Wallace would challenge Allen for the seat
in the November special election. But early in the summer
he surprised supporters by declining to seek the Democratic
nomination, leaving Allen as the favorite. In yet another
unexpected twist, Allen’s campaign began to fall apart in
the wake of a July Washington Post interview in which the
new Senator was quoted as being highly critical of Governor
Wallace and his wife.8 Allen later claimed the interviewer
had distorted her comments, but the reaction in Alabama
damaged her chances for election. Nevertheless, Senator
Allen remained confident. She concentrated on her Senate
duties and campaigned little before the Democratic primary
of September 5th. Allen led the primary voting with 44
percent, but fell short of the outright majority required by
state election laws. Forced into a runoff with Alabama state
senator Donald Wilbur Stewart, Maryon Allen eventually
lost by a margin of more than 120,000 votes on September
26, 1978. In the general election Allen supported Republican
candidate James D. Martin, a U.S. Representative and
close friend of her husband’s. Stewart eventually defeated
Martin, 55 percent to 43 percent. Allen left the Senate on
November 8, 1978, the day after the election.
After her Senate career, Maryon Allen worked as a
columnist for the Washington Post. She later worked as a
public relations and advertising director for an antique and
auction company in Birmingham, Alabama, where she lived
until her death on July 23, 2018.9
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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