Geraldine Ferraro
Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman nominated for national office by a major American party, as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984. Born in Newburgh, New York in 1935 to Italian immigrants, she was eight when her father died suddenly and the family lost its money; her mother crocheted beads to pay for her education. She taught in public schools in Queens while attending Fordham law school at night, one of two women in her class, and passed the bar in 1961. She practised part-time while raising three children, and joined the Queens district attorney's office in 1974, running the Special Victims Bureau, which handled rape, child abuse and domestic violence. She was elected to Congress in 1978 for a conservative Queens district, campaigning with the slogan Finally, a tough Democrat. She served three terms, worked on the Equal Rights Amendment and pension equity for women, and rose quickly through the party organisation, chairing the platform committee in 1984. Mondale selected her in July 1984, and the announcement produced an immediate surge of enthusiasm. The campaign then became difficult: she faced sustained questions about her husband John Zaccaro's property business and tax returns, which he initially declined to release, and about his family associations. She held a ninety-minute press conference answering questions until they stopped. She debated George H. W. Bush and rebuked him for a patronising remark about her grasp of foreign policy. The ticket lost forty-nine states. She later ran twice for the Senate without winning the nomination, served as ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission under Bill Clinton, and worked as a commentator. She lived with multiple myeloma for twelve years and died in 2011.
- Lived: 1935 CE – 2011 CE
- Nationality: American
- Roles: congresswoman
