Margaret Chase Smith

1897-1995

First woman to serve in both houses of the United States Congress. She represented Maine as a Republican in the House from 1940-1949 and in the Senate from 1949-1973. She was an early opponent of Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare, in which people were persecuted as Soviet spies without evidence. In 1950, she gave a speech called the “Declaration of Conscience” in which she identified some of the basic principles of Americanism:

The right to criticize
The right to hold unpopular beliefs
The right to protest
The right of independent thought

In 1964 she was seriously considered for the Republican nomination for president.

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