Elizabeth Dole

Mary Elizabeth Alexander Dole (née Hanford; born July 29, 1936) is an American attorney, author, and politician who served as a United States senator from North Carolina from 2003 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served in five presidential administrations, including as U.S. Secretary of Transportation under Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1987 and as U.S. Secretary of Labor under Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, from 1989 until 1990. Dole then left government to serve as president of the American Red Cross from 1991 to 1999; she departed from that position to seek the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential election, but eventually withdrew from the race.

Dole graduated from Duke University in 1958 and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1965. Throughout her public career, she was the first woman to hold a number of positions, including secretary of transportation, becoming the first woman to serve in two different presidential cabinet positions for two presidents after being appointed secretary of labor, as well as the first female U.S. senator from North Carolina and chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She was also the third female secretary of labor and just the second woman to lead the American Red Cross since its founder, Clara Barton. She is the widow of U.S. senator Bob Dole from Kansas, who served as the Republican Senate leader and was the party's presidential nominee in the 1996 election and vice presidential nominee in the 1976 election.

Early life and education

Dole was born Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford in Salisbury, North Carolina, on July 29, 1936, to Mary Ella (née Cathey; 1901–2004) and John Van Hanford (1893–1978).

Dole attended Duke University and graduated with distinction in political science on June 2, 1958. She was a finalist for an Angier B. Duke scholarship, a full-tuition award given to outstanding applicants who matriculate at Duke. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a recipient of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, a national prize given to those exemplifying the ideal of service to others.

Among her activities at Duke were the chapel choir, Chanticleer (yearbook) business staff, freshman advisory council, the Order of the White Duchy (a local honorary society for outstanding women student leaders, a female counterpart of the Order of the Red Friars), Phi Kappa Delta (a local leadership honorary for senior women), and Pi Sigma Alpha (a national political-science honorary society). Dole is a sister of Delta Delta Delta. She was also elected president of the woman's student government association, 1958 May queen, and "leader of the year" by the student newspaper, The Chronicle. Dole has remained involved with Duke University, serving at various points in time as president of the Duke University alumnae association, and a member of the board of trustees and board of visitors. She has spoken formally at Duke several times.

Following her graduation from Duke, she did her post-graduate work at Oxford in 1959. 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, followed by a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1965. At graduation, she was one of 24 women in a class of 550 students. She is an alumna of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

White House years

Johnson administration

Dole, who had campaigned for the Kennedy–Johnson presidential ticket in 1960, began working in 1967 as a staff assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.

Nixon and Ford administrations

When many Democrats left the White House following Richard Nixon's replacement of Johnson, Dole did not. From 1969 to 1973, she served as deputy assistant to President Nixon for consumer affairs. In 1973, Nixon appointed her to a seven-year term on the Federal Trade Commission.

Dole first met her future husband, Bob Dole, in the spring of 1972 at a meeting arranged by her boss and mentor, Virginia Knauer. The couple dated, and she became his second wife on December 6, 1975, in the Washington National Cathedral. They had no children, though she is stepmother to Bob's adult daughter Robin from his first marriage of 24 years, which ended in divorce in 1972. She attended individually, and later with her husband, the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., before joining the National Presbyterian Church in 1996. Articles at the time reported that the Doles stopped attending Foundry in 1995, finding the pastor at the time, J. Philip Wogaman, too liberal.

In 1975, she became a Republican. 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. During the 1970s, Dole was a self-described member of the Women's Liberation Movement and helped reform laws to ensure equal credit for women. She was also a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Reagan administration and Secretary of Transportation

She served as director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, from 1981 to 1983 and as United States Secretary of Transportation from 1983 to 1987 under Ronald Reagan. She was also appointed by Reagan to chair task forces that sought to reform federal and state laws to ensure equal rights for women. She was the first woman appointed Secretary of Transportation. In this role, she was the first woman to have served as the head of a branch of the United States military, as the United States Coast Guard was under the Department of Transportation at the time. Dole's appointment was "particularly irritating" to conservative activists, since "though at least nominally opposed to abortion, [she was] viewed by the right as [an] aggressive feminist."

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. She was quoted in the press that year saying, "He's not going to change on that."

Bush administration and Secretary of Labor

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. Her tenure as both U.S. Transportation Secretary and U.S. Labor Secretary focused heavily on improving public safety and workplace safety and health.

American Red Cross presidency

In 1991, Dole became the president of the American Red Cross. She served until 1999. She was the second woman to serve as president since Clara Barton founded the organization in 1881. She restructured the world's largest humanitarian organization during her eight years as president, serving as a volunteer in her first year. She also led a transformation of the way the Red Cross collects, tests, and distributes one-half of the nation's blood supply.

1996 Republican National Convention

Dole's husband Bob Dole was the Republican nominee in the US presidential election of 1996. Elizabeth Dole, who would have become First Lady had her husband won the election, or the Second Lady of the United States, had Gerald Ford won the 1976 election, received recognition for her speech at the 1996 Republican National Convention, during which she walked out into the audience while talking conversationally about her husband's qualities.

2000 United States presidential candidacy

Elizabeth Dole ran for the Republican nomination in the 2000 United States presidential election.

Speculation of a presidential campaign became widespread after Dole announced her departure from her job as president of the Red Cross on January 4, 1999.

Dole announced she was forming an exploratory committee on March 10, 1999.

While Dole had been an active participant in her husband's campaign four years prior, he was largely absent from the campaign trail during her campaign.

In August, Dole placed third – behind George W. Bush and Steve Forbes – in a large field in the Iowa Straw Poll (the first, non-binding, test of electability for the Republican Party nomination). The Iowa Straw Poll differed from the national polls where she was second only to Bush; Senator John McCain was in third place.