Elizabeth Dole: A Life Dedicated to Public Service and Education
Elizabeth Dole's career is a testament to a life dedicated to public service, marked by significant achievements in transportation, labor, humanitarian work, and politics. Her journey, fueled by a strong educational foundation, demonstrates a commitment to improving the lives of others and breaking barriers for women in leadership.
Early Life and Education: A Foundation for Success
Born Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford on July 29, 1936, in Salisbury, North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole was the daughter of John and Mary Hanford. Her father was a wealthy importer of floral products. Growing up in a comfortable upper-middle-class home, she and her family attended the local Methodist Church. From a young age, Dole exhibited leadership qualities, organizing a book club at age six and participating actively in school functions and Girl Scouts. Dole loved school and excelled. She participated in all school functions and took piano and ballet lessons throughout her school years. She graduated from high school in 1954.
Dole's academic pursuits led her to Duke University, where she followed in her brother’s footsteps. Dole’s mother had wanted her to study home economics, but Dole decided instead to major in political science. At Duke, Dole was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority and participated in student government. During her senior year she was elected president of the student body, was named the May Queen, and received the Leader of the Year Award. She was an outstanding scholar and earned the Phi Beta Kappa key. She graduated with honors from Duke in 1958. She was elected president of the woman's student government association, 1958 May queen, and "leader of the year" by the student newspaper, The Chronicle.
Dole continued her education at Oxford University in the summer of 1959. The following year she earned her MA in education from Harvard University. After Oxford, she took a job as a student teacher at Melrose High School in Melrose, Massachusetts, for the 1959-1960 school year. While teaching, she also pursued her master's degree in education from Harvard University, which she earned in 1960. She then entered Harvard Law School, a decision that concerned her mother because she had hoped her daughter would marry and build a home on the lot beside her residence in Salisbury. In 1962, Elizabeth became one of 24 women (in a class of 550) to enter Harvard Law School and in 1965 she graduated. After earning her law degree in 1965, Dole relocated to Washington, DC, and began her career in government service.
Early Career and Political Affiliations
Dole was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia in 1966. A registered Democrat, she became involved in Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society program by taking a position as an undersecretary staff member who worked on issues involving people with disabilities with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1967-68 she practiced law and represented clients in extreme poverty in the Washington area. Johnson, in April 1968, appointed her to a position in the Office of Consumer Affairs. When Nixon took over the presidency, Elizabeth switched her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent and became executive director of the President's Committee for Consumer Interests. She continued in this position when Richard M. Nixon became president in 1969. Nixon also appointed her to the five-member nonpartisan Federal Trade Commission. She served on the commission from 1973 to 1979.
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Her early experience included working on issues involving people with disabilities within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. She represented clients in extreme poverty in the Washington area.
Marriage to Bob Dole and Rise in Republican Politics
While working as a deputy to Nixon’s special assistant for consumer affairs in 1974, Dole met Senator Bob Dole, and they soon began dating. Dole met Elizabeth Hanford in the spring of 1972 when she lobbied him to add a consumer plank to the 1972 Republican platform. The meeting was arranged by Elizabeth's boss and mentor at the time, Virginia Knauer -- the woman in charge of Nixon's Consumer Affairs office. Before marrying on December 26, 1975, she again switched her party affiliation, from Independent to Republican. In 1975, she became a Republican. Their marriage created much media interest, and the Doles became known as one of the most famous power couples in Washington. Dole helped in her husband’s campaign as President Gerald Ford’s vice presidential running mate in 1976, but Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. She took a leave from her post as a Federal Trade Commissioner for several months in 1976 to campaign for her husband for vice president of the United States, when he ran on the Republican ticket with Gerald Ford. She later resigned from the FTC in 1979, to campaign for her husband's 1980 presidential run.
Trailblazing Career in Government Service
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed Dole assistant to the President’s Office of Consumer Affairs, Public Liaison. In February 1983, she was appointed secretary of transportation, becoming the first woman to hold that position. This Department of Transportation (DOT) appointment also made her the first woman to hold a high-level position with the military, as the office included jurisdiction over the Coast Guard. As the top consumer safety enforcer in the country, she instituted requirements for a third brake light and air bags on all automobiles. She secured federal funding for the restoration of Union Station in Washington, DC, helped strengthen urban mass-transit systems, improved Amtrak and Conrail transit, hired more aviation inspectors, and lobbied for the extension of the age limit for drinking from eighteen to twenty-one. She also appointed more women to the DOT and provided day care centers for DOT employees so that more women could work with the agency. During her tenure, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mandated the installation of a center high-mounted stop lamp on new cars; these are sometimes called "Liddy Lights" in her recognition. She worked with MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) to pass laws withholding federal highway funding from any state that had a drinking age below 21. The state government of South Dakota opposed the drinking age law and sued Dole in the case South Dakota v. Dole, but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Dole. She oversaw the privatization of the national freight railroad, Conrail. She initiated random drug testing within the Department of Transportation. By 1984 Dole had stopped trying to get Reagan to support the Equal Rights Amendment.
In 1989, Bush appointed Dole the secretary of labor. As secretary she worked on efforts to break the glass ceiling that kept women from obtaining executive positions, helped raise the minimum wage, and helped settle a United Mine Workers strike. Dole served as United States Secretary of Labor from 1989 to 1990 under George H. W. Bush; she is the first woman to serve in two different Cabinet positions in the administrations of two presidents.
Leading the American Red Cross
In 1990 she resigned as labor secretary to become president of the American Red Cross, becoming only the second woman to hold this position since its founder, Clara Barton, in the nineteenth century. She restructured the world's largest humanitarian organization during her eight years as president, serving as a volunteer in her first year. During her tenure with the Red Cross, Dole worked to keep the nation’s blood supply safe from contamination by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), worked on disaster and famine relief worldwide, and helped to provide aid to war refugees in Somalia, Croatia, and Rwanda. She lobbied Americans to increase their contributions to humanitarian organizations. Dole led a $287 million project that transformed how the Red Cross collects, tests, and distributes blood. This modernization created one centralized database, replaced 53 testing facilities with eight state-of-the art and standardized labs, and began a Quality Assurance Program that became a model for the blood banking industry.
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Dole took a leave of absence from the Red Cross in 1996, again to help with her husband’s unsuccessful campaign for the White House. In 1997 she resumed her position at the Red Cross and worked to streamline the agency for better emergency preparedness.
Presidential Aspirations and Senate Career
In 1998 she resigned her position and ran for the US presidency in the lead-up to the 2000 election, placing third in the Iowa caucus behind George W. Bush and Steve Forbes. She left the race in October 1999 and was considered a top vice presidential contender. However, much to the surprise of many in politics, Republican nominee Bush instead selected Dick Cheney as his running mate. Dole's attempt to secure the 2000 Republican Party presidential nomination uncovered some of the barriers for women seeking election to the highest political office in the United States. She garnered less media coverage than expected for the second most popular Republican candidate and was less likely than other candidates to be mentioned first in news stories or be included in front-page articles. The press also discussed her personality and physical features in disparaging, gendered ways and repeatedly talked about Dole as the “first woman” to be a serious presidential candidate, suggesting that she was a novelty in the race.
After this unsuccessful bid for the presidency, Dole began her run for the Senate seat representing North Carolina. In the 2002 election she beat the Democratic contender, Erskine Bowles, with 54 percent of the vote, and made the transition from being a political appointee in civil service, representing national interests, to being an elected politician representing her state’s constituents. Her election to the Senate marked the first time a spouse of a former Senator was elected to the Senate from a different state from that of her spouse.
During her tenure in the Senate, Dole served on various committees, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, for which she was chair from 2005 to 2007. In November 2004, following Republican gains in the United States Senate, Dole narrowly edged out Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota for the post of chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She is the first woman to become chair of the NRSC. She ran for reelection in 2008 but was ultimately unsuccessful, losing to Kay Hagan in the general election. In late October, Dole released a controversial television ad attacking Hagan for reportedly taking donations from individuals involved in the Godless Americans PAC, a group that advocates for the rights of people who do not believe in God. The ad also included a female voice saying, "There is no god." Hagan's campaign said the ad sought to put inflammatory words in their candidate's mouth. It has been speculated that the outcry over the "Godless" ad contributed to Dole's loss.
Post-Senate Career and the Elizabeth Dole Foundation
In the years following her departure from the Senate, Dole devoted herself to various philanthropic endeavors. Particularly concerned with the needs of veterans, military families, and caregivers, in 2012 Dole established the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, which provides grants and other support to nonprofit organizations that assist such individuals. Dole commissioned the RAND Corporation to develop the first nationwide comprehensive, evidence-based report on the needs of military and veteran caregivers. In November 2021, she attended a White House event, focused on advocating on behalf of service members' family caregivers, held as part of First Lady Jill Biden's Joining Forces initiative, which she supported. This event occurred shortly before the death of Bob Dole on December 5.
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