Women’s History Month: Finding Voices in the Shadows

This blog post was written by Graduate Assistant Emma Fenske.

“Women’s history is women’s right…an essential, indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision.”[1] (President Jimmy Carter quoting Dr. Gerda Lerner in his proclamation on Women’s History Week, February 28, 1980)

How do we celebrate Women’s History Month at a Congressional Library?

It is easy to celebrate “the greats”.[2] They have done impressive things, their names are widely recognized, and their documents are well preserved so that it is easy to find their work. It is much more difficult to celebrate the individuals “in the shadows of the greats”. The United States Congress is one of the places where “the greats” shine. Throughout the history of the United States Congress, 12,415 individuals have served their country and constituents as Representatives and Senators. [3]

Historically, Congress has not been a place to find the voice of women. Since 1789, women have only constituted 2.9% of Congress members: no women were elected to Congress until 1917, and since then, only 387 women have served in Congress. While these figures for Congressional participation look bleak, drawing the history of women from Congressional history allows us to discover an “indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision”.[4]

The year after President Jimmy Carter referenced the quote by Dr. Gerda Lerner – one of the founders of the field of Women’s History – in his initial proclamation to recognize the week of March 2-8, 1980 as “National Women’s History Week,” Congress passed a joint-resolution (Pub. L. 97-28, 95 Stat. 148) asking the President to issue a proclamation designating “the week beginning March 7, 1982, as “Women’s History Week”. Congress continued to pass similar resolutions until 1987 when, after petitioning from the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed a joint-resolution (Pub. L. 100-9, 101 Stat. 99) declaring “that the month of March, 1987, is designated as ‘Women’s History Month’ and the President is requested to issue a proclamation.” Congress went on to pass a public law requesting the designation of March as Women’s History Month until 1994 (Pub. L. 103-22, 107 Stat. 58). These laws sought to recognize:

• “American women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historical contributions to the growth and strength of the Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways”;
• “American women have played and continue to play a critical economic, cultural, and social role in every sphere of our Nation’s life by constituting a significant portion of the labor force working in and outside of the home”
• “American women have played a unique role throughout our history by providing the majority of the Nation’s volunteer labor force and have been particularly important in the establishment of early charitable philanthropic and cultural institutions in this country”
• “American women of every race, class, and ethnic background served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement, not only to secure their own right of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and other movements to create a more fair and just society for all; and
• “despite these contributions, the role of American women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued in the body of American history”[5]

So how do we as a Congressional Library, in association with a declared space in Congressional history, participate in the work of seeking to find and value the role of women within a male-dominated field? We can accomplish this call to action by recognizing the individuals “in the shadow of the greats”.

At Poage Library, we are able to recognize the work of Mattie Mae McKee, a Congressional aide to U.S. Representatives O.C. Fisher, Bob Poage, and Marvin Leath, Executive Secretary to Senator John Tower of Texas, and Executive Assistant to Senator John Warner of Virginia. McKee began her career as a legal secretary where she became one of only twelve in Texas to earn her certification as a Certified Professional Legal Secretary in 1966. Two years later, Mattie McKee began her twenty-one-year career in the political arena (1968-1989) which spanned the presidential administrations Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.

It is from the title of McKee’s 2014 book, In the Shadow of Greats: From Texas’ Square Roots to Capitol Hill’s Inner Circle, that we have grasped the idea of where to search for the role of women within Congressional history. In her book, McKee offers a personal glimpse into her life during her political career. McKee provides short written sketches and photos of events and individuals from her time in Washington. While McKee covers well known stories of “greats” and excellent legislative and Congressional stories, she also uncovers women’s stories and voices that typically go unheard. McKee writes about recipes, a visit to the Smithsonian’s First Ladies gown collection with special guest First Lady Betty Ford, female authors, secretaries, women who ran exceptional restaurants in D.C., and even the woman who helped preserve the Congressional collections of W. R. Poage and Jack Hightower (both of which are now housed at the Poage Legislative Library).

In the Shadow of Greats demonstrates just how present women were and are within spaces where we often only hear the voices of the “greats”. McKee’s life and the stories she preserved show just how much “American women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historical contributions to the growth and strength of the Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways”.[6]

While we can continue to work towards greater representation of women’s voices among “the greats,” Women’s History Month reminds us to recognize the many voices of women that remain in the shadows. Through the work of women like Mattie Mae McKee, we are able to see a woman working in the shadows and the many women who worked alongside her: the “American women [who] have played and continue to play a critical economic, cultural, and social role in every sphere of our Nation’s life by constituting a significant portion of the labor force working in and outside of the home”.[7] The W. R. Poage Legislative Library celebrates Women’s History Month by working to preserve and remember the voices in the shadows: to continue alongside individuals like Mattie Mae McKee.

 

Footnotes

[1]  Carter, Jimmy. 1980. “First Presidential Message, 1980.” National Women’s History Alliance. 28 February. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://nationalwomenshistoryalliance.org/womens-history-month/first-presidential-message-1980/.

[2] McKee, Mattie Mae. 2014. In the Shadow of the Greats : From Texas’ Square Roots to Capitol Hill’s Inner Circle. Ballinger: Ballinger Printing & Graphics.

[3] The House of Representatives. 2021. “Total Members of the House & State Representation.” History and Art Archives: United States House of Representatives. January 21. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Total-Members/Total-Members/#:~:text=Since%20the%20U.S.%20Congress%20convened,with%20service%20in%20both%20chambers.

[4] Manning, Jennifer E., and Ida A. Brudnick. 2020. Women in Congress: Brief Overview. CRS Report, Congressional Research Service.

Manning, Jennifer E., and Ida A. Brudnick. 2020. Women in Congress, 1917-2020: Service Dates and Committee Assignments by Member, and Lists by State. CRS Report, Congressional Research Service.

Carter, Jimmy. 1980. “First Presidential Message, 1980.” National Women’s History  Alliance. 28 February. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://nationalwomenshistoryalliance.org/womens-history-month/first-presidential-message-1980/.

Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University. 2021. “Women in the U.S. Congress 2021.” CAWP – Center for American Women and Politics. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://cawp.rutgers.edu/women-us-congress-2021.

[5] (Pub. L. 100-9, 101 Stat. 99)

[6] (Pub. L. 100-9, 101 Stat. 99)

[7] (Pub. L. 100-9, 101 Stat. 99)

References

Buhle, Mari Jo. 2013. “Remembering Gerda Lerner, a Pioneer in Women’s History.” Organization of American Historians. February. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://www.oah.org/insights/archive/remembering-gerda-lerner-a-pioneer-in-womens-history/#:~:text=As%20quoted%20by%20President%20Jimmy,determinedly%20lived%20by%20those%20words.

Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University. 2021. “Women in the U.S. Congress 2021.” CAWP – Center for American Women and Politics. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://cawp.rutgers.edu/women-us-congress-2021.

Library of Congress. 2020. “Women’s History Month.” Library of Congress. December 30. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://www.loc.gov/law/help/commemorative-observations/women_history.php.

McKee, Mattie Mae. 2014. In the Shadow of the Greats : From Texas’ Square Roots to Capitol Hill’s Inner Circle. Ballinger: Ballinger Printing & Graphics.

National Women’s History Museum. 2021. “Women’s History Month.” National Women’s History Museum. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://www.womenshistory.org/womens-history/womens-history-month.

The Library of Congress. n.d. “March is Women’s History Month.” Women’s History Month. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://womenshistorymonth.gov/about/.