The Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women & Politics at Iowa State University is currently developing two archives of women's political communication - (1) an online archive of women's political speech and (2) a videotape collection of women political candidates' campaign commercials.

The Archive of Women's Political Communication is made possible through a generous gift from Richard and Mary Jo Stanley of Muscatine, IA.

Margaret C. Smith

She was the daughter of a barber in Skowhegan, Maine. Margaret worked after school at the five and 10 and took commercial courses in high school. Unable to afford college, she pursued a career in office work at the telephone company and a weekly newspaper until, at the age of thirty-four, she married Clyde Harold Smith, a prominent Republican politician twenty-one years her senior. When Smith was elected to the House of Representatives, Margaret served as his secretary. After he suffered a heart attack in 1940, she filed for the primary in his place, intending to withdraw when he recovered....   More