Key figures: Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale, John Zaccaro, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush
Summary
Geraldine Anne Ferraro died on March 26, 2011, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston at age 75, from complications of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer with which she had been diagnosed in November 1998. Born August 26, 1935, in Newburgh, New York, Ferraro was a former schoolteacher and prosecutor who represented New York’s 9th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 1985. In 1984, Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale selected her as his running mate, making her the first woman nominated for vice president by a major American political party.
Though the Mondale-Ferraro ticket lost decisively to incumbents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the 1984 general election, Ferraro’s nomination was a landmark moment for women in American politics. She went on to make two unsuccessful bids for the U.S. Senate from New York, later served as a U.S. diplomat, and spent her final decade as a prominent advocate for multiple myeloma research and patient care.
Early Life and Career
Ferraro was the daughter of Italian immigrants; her father died when she was eight years old, and her mother supported the family by sewing beads onto dresses. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Marymount Manhattan College in 1956 while working as an elementary school teacher in Astoria, Queens, and subsequently earned a law degree from Fordham University School of Law in 1960, one of only two women in her graduating class. She married John Zaccaro, a real estate developer, in 1960 and practiced law part-time while raising their three children. In 1974 she became an assistant district attorney in Queens County, where she headed the Special Victims Bureau, prosecuting sex crimes, child abuse, and domestic violence cases.
Congress and the 1984 Vice-Presidential Nomination
Ferraro was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, representing New York’s 9th District, and was re-elected in 1980 and 1982. She served on the Budget and Public Works committees and rose to Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus, becoming known as an advocate for women’s rights and economic equity. On July 12, 1984, Walter Mondale announced her as his running mate, and she formally accepted the Democratic vice-presidential nomination at the party’s convention on July 19, 1984, declaring, “The daughter of an immigrant from Italy has been chosen to run for vice president in the new land my father came to love.” Her nomination made her both the first woman and the first Italian American on a major party’s national ticket. The Mondale-Ferraro ticket lost the November 1984 election to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush by a wide margin, carrying only Minnesota and the District of Columbia.
Later Career and Illness
After leaving Congress, Ferraro made two unsuccessful runs for the U.S. Senate from New York, losing the 1992 Democratic primary narrowly to Robert Abrams and the 1998 primary to Chuck Schumer. From 1993 to 1996, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights under President Bill Clinton, and in 1995 was vice-chair of the U.S. delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in November 1998 and disclosed the diagnosis publicly in 2001; she underwent a bone marrow transplant in 2005 and lived with the disease for roughly twelve years, well beyond the three-to-five-year prognosis typical at the time of her diagnosis. In her later years she became a visible advocate for multiple myeloma research and expanded access to clinical trials, crediting new treatments developed during her illness with extending her life.
Significance
Ferraro’s 1984 nomination broke a barrier that had never before been crossed in American presidential politics, demonstrating that a major party would place a woman on a national ticket and inspiring a generation of women to seek elected office. Her advocacy in her final years helped raise public awareness of multiple myeloma and access to experimental treatments for blood cancers. Tributes following her death, including from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, credited her with paving the way for later women in national politics, including subsequent female vice-presidential and presidential candidates.
Sources
- Geraldine Ferraro - Wikipedia
- Political trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro dies - CBS News
- Geraldine Ferraro named vice presidential candidate - HISTORY
- Taking Her Place: Geraldine Ferraro, Multiple Myeloma, and Access to Clinical Trials - Cancer Today
- FERRARO, Geraldine Anne - US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Related
- Death of R. Sargent Shriver — a fellow American public-service figure who died in 2011
- Death of Elizabeth Taylor — a prominent American woman among 2011’s notable deaths
- Literary and Intellectual Figures of 2011 — the year’s other notable deaths