The Republican Senator from Maine confronts McCarthy and McCarthyism

Margaret Chase Smith, a League member from Maine and the first woman to serve in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, was also the first woman nominated for president by a major political party, the Republicans, in 1964. Known as a moderate, she is often remembered for her 1950 speech, “Declaration of Conscience,” in which she criticized the controversial tactics of fellow Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Margaret was honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1973. Read about it on the NWHoF site.