State Legislature

Commissioned by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), Kirkpatrick's book is the first major study of women in American public life.  Kirkpatrick interviewed women state legislators attending the historic first national gathering of elected women, the Conference for Women State Legislators, convened by CAWP in May 1972. Funded with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the conference focused on the backgrounds, attitudes and experiences of women elected to state legislatures. The book details the struggles political women faced as they ran their campaigns, coped with the prejudices of constituents and colleagues, and

As an educational and research center concerned with increasing the contribution women can make to the American political system, the Center for the American Woman and Politics decided to hold a series of conferences for women already in public life, who could address themselves to questions about women’s political participation on the basis of personal experience. This report deals with the first such conference, which was made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Conference for Women State Legislators brought together fifty women officeholders from twenty-eight states. At the time, out of a nationwide total of