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Harriett Ball (1946 – 2011) was an American educator who inspired the KIPP program.
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Since its inception in 1985. EMILY’s List has become arguably the most influential group focused on electing women to Congress, specifically pro-choice Democratic women. It is impossible to discuss women’s history in politics without addressing EMILY’s List and its role.
The story of EMILY’s List founding comes out of frustration. And that frustration came in the form of the 1982 Senate campaign of Harriett Woods (D-MO), then serving in the Missouri State Senate.
To the nascent world of pro-choice Democratic accident, Harriett Woods’ Senate loss in 1982 was the result of egregious sexism and male-dominated control of campaign purse strings. For a small but influential group of activists, her loss would be galvanizing; some would become the “Team A” group that would organize around Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY)’s 1984 vice-presidential candidacy. For those and many others, they would follow the leadership of a woman named Ellen Malcolm and would become the “Founding Mothers” of EMILY’s List in 1985. And in 1986, they would elect the first pro-choice Democratic woman to a full term in the Senate in her own right.
Ruth Harriett Friedman was born in Cleveland, Ohio on 2 June 1927. She attended the University of Michigan, where she earned a degree in philosophy.
In 1953, she married James B. Woods, an editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, a now-defunct daily newspaper. The couple would live in the St. Louis, Missouri area, and raise three sons.
Woods began her political ascent in local journalism. She worked for local newspapers and also appeared local Missouri television talk shows. On television, she became known for addressing serious topics of the era: civil rights, women's rights, child abuse, the escalating Vietnam War.
Woods' introduction to politics was local: she was annoyed by loose manhole covers in her neighborhood. When the local city hall ignored her complaints, she collected a petition demanding action, and succeeded.
From that, she entered electoral politics herself in 1967, running for and winning election to the City Council of University City, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. She served on the city council for seven years. She was then appointed to the Missouri Highway Commission by Gov. Kit Bond (R-MO) in 1974. During this same stretch, she worked as independent film producer.
In 1976, Woods ran for the Missouri State Senate, and won; she was the second-ever woman elected to the body. She was reelected in 1980. Her State Senate tenure focused on elder care and the Equal Rights Amendment.
In 1982, Woods made her most audacious run for office, challenging first-term incumbent Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) in the United States Senate.
In 1982, no Democratic woman had ever been elected to a full term in the Senate, who had not followed a husband into the body.
For women's groups, this was seen as egregious. Women increasingly leaned Democratic - the "gender gap" had been a key takeaway of the 1980 presidential election - and with the ascendance of Pres. Ronald Reagan, the idea of abortion had become more dramatically partisan. The ascendant religious right and the Reagan administration had made ending abortion a central plank of their platform.
In 1982, there were two women in the Senate. Both were Republican, and though they weren't particularly vociferously anti-abortion, the polarization of abortion rights in American politics had made the lack of pro-choice Democratic women in the Senate seem unquestionably wrong to women's groups.
The state and national Democratic parties were unimpressed with the concerns of women activists. They wanted a man to challenge Danforth, and they put their efforts behind a male competitor in what became an eleven-person Democratic primary.
Regardless, with 45% of the vote, Woods won decisively, defeating her nearest competitor by more than 120,000 votes.
With her victory, Woods became the only woman on the general election ballot for the Senate anywhere in the United States. And that brought attention, particularly from women's groups, and most especially from those focusing on abortion rights. Women's groups thought Woods had a real shot at winning.
Importantly, polling data suggested the same.
Yet still, Woods received no institutional Democratic support. She had run against the state Democratic Party in Missouri, and won decisively. The national Democratic Senate campaign committee decided to follow the state party's recommendation, and refused to provide any financial support. For women activists, it was hard not to see it as an affront to a promising woman Senate candidate.
Though women's advocacy groups were all over the country and had wide reach, it was a relatively small subset of Washington, D.C. women that became focused on the need for pro-choice Senate women.
Using their networks, they made an effort to try and build a fundraising network for Woods' campaign. It was haphazardly organized, but it did raise a fairly significant amount of money - nearly $1.2 million - for Woods. Still, this was only around half of what Danforth had raised.
A month out from the election, Woods was gaining on Danforth, even leading in some polls. But about two weeks before the election, Woods ran out of money. All her advertising had to end, and she became reliant on more limited campaign appearances.
On election day, Woods lost by 26,000 votes, a margin of less than 2%. Woods carried rural areas, but ended up losing in major TV markets, where Danforth was all over TV screens. It was hard for activists to not feel a sense of lost opportunity; had she had the money, had she had institutional support, they felt there was a good chance she could have won.
These same women who had tried to haphazardly champion Woods' Senate campaign became the foundation of "Team A," the advocates who would in 1984 help propel Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY) to the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. One of their associates, Ellen Malcolm, founded EMILY's List (Early Money is Like Yeast) in 1985 almost entirely out of the frustration experienced by Woods' fundraising woes. The women of Woods' fundraising campaign became the "Founding Mothers" of EMILY's List.
Though down, Woods was hardly out. She ran for Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1984, and won, even as Missouri Attorney General John Ashcroft (R-MO) won the Missouri governorship, and Pres. Ronald Reagan carried Missouri in the presidential race.
In 1986, the now-formally-incorporated EMILY's List organized behind Woods again, this time for an open Senate seat left behind upon the retirement of Sen. Tom Eagleton (D-MO). Woods and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) were EMILY's List first endorsed and promoted Senate candidates.
Woods again lost a narrow race, this time against former Gov. Kit Bond (R-MO), who had appointed her to the Missouri Highway Commission a decade prior.
Both EMILY's List founder Ellen Malcolm and Woods' New York Times obituary pointed in particular to a three-part June 1986 TV ad that featured a farmer breaking into tears as he told Woods of his farm foreclosure. The ad then named Bond as a board member of the insurance company that foreclosed on the farmer.
The ad backfired on Woods. The Almanac of American Politics suggested that the commercial struck voters as demagoguery or an invasion of privacy. Ellen Malcolm suggested that the ad had proven emasculating for the farmer, and sexism had then taken that out on Woods.
Woods finished the campaign five points shy of victory.
Woods served as Lieutenant Governor until 1989.
From 1991 to 1995, she served as the president of the National Women's Political Caucus. One of her first tasks in this role was to express anger at the treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearings. It was also from this vantage point that experienced her greatest success: she was influential behind the scenes in supporting the women of the 1992 Year of the Woman congressional elections.
One of those women was Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL). In an interview with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1995, Moseley Braun said of Woods, “She brings a hard-nosed as opposed to a garden-club approach.”
Woods spent much of the rest of her life teaching at various colleges.
Woods ignited passions in the Missouri electorate well past her Senate campaigns. In 2000, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, “The only Missouri woman who comes close to sharing Woods’s lightning-rod status is her political opposite, conservative antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly.”
In 2001, she became a loud and pointed critic of now-Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) and his proposed appointment as Us Attorney General under Pres. George W. Bush. Ashcroft had been governor while Woods was lieutenant governor. She delivered testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee against his confirmation. Ashcroft was confirmed, but would become a very controversial figure in the administration.
In January 2007, Woods was invited to Washington, D.C. where she attended Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)'s installation as Speaker of the House, and the swearing-in of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), the first woman elected to the Senate from Missouri. (Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-MO, 2001-2002) had been appointed to fill her husband's unexpired term.)
Woods died a few weeks later, in February 2007 at the age of 79.
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The story of EMILY’s List founding comes out of frustration. And that frustration came in the form of the 1982 Senate campaign of Harriett Woods (D-MO), then serving in the Missouri State Senate.
To the nascent world of pro-choice Democratic accident, Harriett Woods’ Senate loss in 1982 was the result of egregious sexism and male-dominated control of campaign purse strings. For a small but influential group of activists, her loss would be galvanizing; some would become the “Team A” group that would organize around Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY)’s 1984 vice-presidential candidacy. For those and many others, they would follow the leadership of a woman named Ellen Malcolm and would become the “Founding Mothers” of EMILY’s List in 1985. And in 1986, they would elect the first pro-choice Democratic woman to a full term in the Senate in her own right.
Ruth Harriett Friedman was born in Cleveland, Ohio on 2 June 1927. She attended the University of Michigan, where she earned a degree in philosophy.
In 1953, she married James B. Woods, an editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, a now-defunct daily newspaper. The couple would live in the St. Louis, Missouri area, and raise three sons.
Woods began her political ascent in local journalism. She worked for local newspapers and also appeared local Missouri television talk shows. On television, she became known for addressing serious topics of the era: civil rights, women's rights, child abuse, the escalating Vietnam War.
Woods' introduction to politics was local: she was annoyed by loose manhole covers in her neighborhood. When the local city hall ignored her complaints, she collected a petition demanding action, and succeeded.
From that, she entered electoral politics herself in 1967, running for and winning election to the City Council of University City, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. She served on the city council for seven years. She was then appointed to the Missouri Highway Commission by Gov. Kit Bond (R-MO) in 1974. During this same stretch, she worked as independent film producer.
In 1976, Woods ran for the Missouri State Senate, and won; she was the second-ever woman elected to the body. She was reelected in 1980. Her State Senate tenure focused on elder care and the Equal Rights Amendment.
In 1982, Woods made her most audacious run for office, challenging first-term incumbent Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) in the United States Senate.
In 1982, no Democratic woman had ever been elected to a full term in the Senate, who had not followed a husband into the body.
For women's groups, this was seen as egregious. Women increasingly leaned Democratic - the "gender gap" had been a key takeaway of the 1980 presidential election - and with the ascendance of Pres. Ronald Reagan, the idea of abortion had become more dramatically partisan. The ascendant religious right and the Reagan administration had made ending abortion a central plank of their platform.
In 1982, there were two women in the Senate. Both were Republican, and though they weren't particularly vociferously anti-abortion, the polarization of abortion rights in American politics had made the lack of pro-choice Democratic women in the Senate seem unquestionably wrong to women's groups.
The state and national Democratic parties were unimpressed with the concerns of women activists. They wanted a man to challenge Danforth, and they put their efforts behind a male competitor in what became an eleven-person Democratic primary.
Regardless, with 45% of the vote, Woods won decisively, defeating her nearest competitor by more than 120,000 votes.
With her victory, Woods became the only woman on the general election ballot for the Senate anywhere in the United States. And that brought attention, particularly from women's groups, and most especially from those focusing on abortion rights. Women's groups thought Woods had a real shot at winning.
Importantly, polling data suggested the same.
Yet still, Woods received no institutional Democratic support. She had run against the state Democratic Party in Missouri, and won decisively. The national Democratic Senate campaign committee decided to follow the state party's recommendation, and refused to provide any financial support. For women activists, it was hard not to see it as an affront to a promising woman Senate candidate.
Though women's advocacy groups were all over the country and had wide reach, it was a relatively small subset of Washington, D.C. women that became focused on the need for pro-choice Senate women.
Using their networks, they made an effort to try and build a fundraising network for Woods' campaign. It was haphazardly organized, but it did raise a fairly significant amount of money - nearly $1.2 million - for Woods. Still, this was only around half of what Danforth had raised.
A month out from the election, Woods was gaining on Danforth, even leading in some polls. But about two weeks before the election, Woods ran out of money. All her advertising had to end, and she became reliant on more limited campaign appearances.
On election day, Woods lost by 26,000 votes, a margin of less than 2%. Woods carried rural areas, but ended up losing in major TV markets, where Danforth was all over TV screens. It was hard for activists to not feel a sense of lost opportunity; had she had the money, had she had institutional support, they felt there was a good chance she could have won.
These same women who had tried to haphazardly champion Woods' Senate campaign became the foundation of "Team A," the advocates who would in 1984 help propel Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY) to the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. One of their associates, Ellen Malcolm, founded EMILY's List (Early Money is Like Yeast) in 1985 almost entirely out of the frustration experienced by Woods' fundraising woes. The women of Woods' fundraising campaign became the "Founding Mothers" of EMILY's List.
Though down, Woods was hardly out. She ran for Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1984, and won, even as Missouri Attorney General John Ashcroft (R-MO) won the Missouri governorship, and Pres. Ronald Reagan carried Missouri in the presidential race.
In 1986, the now-formally-incorporated EMILY's List organized behind Woods again, this time for an open Senate seat left behind upon the retirement of Sen. Tom Eagleton (D-MO). Woods and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) were EMILY's List first endorsed and promoted Senate candidates.
Woods again lost a narrow race, this time against former Gov. Kit Bond (R-MO), who had appointed her to the Missouri Highway Commission a decade prior.
Both EMILY's List founder Ellen Malcolm and Woods' New York Times obituary pointed in particular to a three-part June 1986 TV ad that featured a farmer breaking into tears as he told Woods of his farm foreclosure. The ad then named Bond as a board member of the insurance company that foreclosed on the farmer.
The ad backfired on Woods. The Almanac of American Politics suggested that the commercial struck voters as demagoguery or an invasion of privacy. Ellen Malcolm suggested that the ad had proven emasculating for the farmer, and sexism had then taken that out on Woods.
Woods finished the campaign five points shy of victory.
Woods served as Lieutenant Governor until 1989.
From 1991 to 1995, she served as the president of the National Women's Political Caucus. One of her first tasks in this role was to express anger at the treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearings. It was also from this vantage point that experienced her greatest success: she was influential behind the scenes in supporting the women of the 1992 Year of the Woman congressional elections.
One of those women was Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL). In an interview with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1995, Moseley Braun said of Woods, “She brings a hard-nosed as opposed to a garden-club approach.”
Woods spent much of the rest of her life teaching at various colleges.
Woods ignited passions in the Missouri electorate well past her Senate campaigns. In 2000, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, “The only Missouri woman who comes close to sharing Woods’s lightning-rod status is her political opposite, conservative antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly.”
In 2001, she became a loud and pointed critic of now-Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) and his proposed appointment as Us Attorney General under Pres. George W. Bush. Ashcroft had been governor while Woods was lieutenant governor. She delivered testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee against his confirmation. Ashcroft was confirmed, but would become a very controversial figure in the administration.
In January 2007, Woods was invited to Washington, D.C. where she attended Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)'s installation as Speaker of the House, and the swearing-in of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), the first woman elected to the Senate from Missouri. (Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-MO, 2001-2002) had been appointed to fill her husband's unexpired term.)
Woods died a few weeks later, in February 2007 at the age of 79.
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The double Ts don’t look that bad but I’d definitely still use Harriet.
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In 2018, 68 is the most common age for an American (U.S.) Harriett who is registered female with the Social Security Administration. It is the 1, 970th most common female first name for living U.S. citizens.
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Harriett Mulford Stone (1844-1924), who wrote under the pseudonym Margaret Sidney, was the author of the 19th century Five Little Peppers children's series. In addition to writing, she also for a time ran the publishing company founded by her late husband Daniel Lathrop, the man who discovered her.
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