Helen Gahagan Douglas

Helen Mary Gahagan was born in Boonton, New Jersey, of Scotch-Irish descent. She was the eldest daughter of Lillian Rose (Mussen) and Walter H. Gahagan, an engineer who owned a construction business in Brooklyn and a shipyard in Arverne, Queens; her mother had been a schoolteacher. Gahagan was raised at 231 Lincoln Place in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, an upper-middle-class neighborhood. She attended the prestigious Berkeley Carroll School, where she "attracted the favorable attention of Brooklyn critics through her performance in school plays". Following an argument with her father, who did not believe becoming an actress was a suitable occupation for a woman, she was sent to study at the Capen School for Girls in Northampton, Massachusetts. To the dismay and shock of her father she left after two years, without finishing her degree, to pursue an acting career. ==Acting career==

Gahagan found great success and became a well known star on Broadway in the 1920s, appearing in popular plays such as Young Woodley and Trelawney of the Wells. In 1927, at the age of 26, Gahagan set out to forge a new career as an opera singer, and, after two years of voice lessons, she found herself touring across Europe and receiving critical praise, unusual for an American at the time. The two married in 1931, Gahagan keeping her maiden name. They had two children, Peter and Mary. Gahagan Douglas went to Los Angeles in 1935, starring in the Hollywood movie She, playing Hash-a-Motep, queen of a lost city. The movie, based on H. Rider Haggard's novel of the same name, is perhaps best known for popularizing a phrase from the novel, "She who must be obeyed". Gahagan's depiction of the "ageless ice goddess" served as inspiration for the Evil Queen in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. While in Vienna in 1938, performing in opera (which was a dream come true for Gahagan Douglas), she found herself having coffee with a Nazi sympathizer. The experience sickened her to such a degree that she immediately flew back to Los Angeles, determined to fight Nazism publicly. ==Political career==

Introduced to politics by her husband, with Eleanor Roosevelt serving as a political mentor to Gahagan Douglas. She largely disliked the atmosphere of Hollywood; following the birth of her daughter, Mary Helen, in 1938, Gahagan Douglas took to learning about the plight of migrant workers and grew increasingly politically aware. named for the author of The Grapes of Wrath, and by 1940 she was the national spokesperson for migrants. Gahagan Douglas was a member of the national advisory committee of the Works Progress Administration and of the State committee of the National Youth Administration in 1939 and 1940. She then served as Democratic national committeewoman for California and vice chairwoman of the Democratic state central committee and chairman of the women's division from 1940 to 1944. She was also a member of the board of governors of the California Housing and Planning Association in 1942 and 1943, and was appointed by Roosevelt as a member of the Voluntary Participation Committee, Office of Civilian Defense. She was later appointed by President Harry S. Truman as an alternate United States delegate to the United Nations Assembly. In 1946, she was among those honored by the National Association of Colored Women for her role in interracial cooperation for advancing race and gender equality. Gahagan Douglas had been a colleague of the organization's founder, Mary McLeod Bethune, on the National Youth Administration. House of Representatives In 1943, Democratic leaders, including FDR, persuaded Gahagan Douglas to run in the 1944 election Her impressive speech raised her profile, with some imagining a VP spot in her future, if not a presidential candidacy. Her love affair with Lyndon B. Johnson was an open secret on Capitol Hill. 1950 U.S. Senate campaign In 1950, Gahagan Douglas ran for the United States Senate, although incumbent Democrat Sheridan Downey was seeking a third term. California Democratic state chairman William M. Malone had advised Gahagan Douglas to wait until 1952 to run for the Senate, rather than split the party in a fight with Downey. Gahagan Douglas, however, told Malone that Downey had neglected veterans and small growers and had to be unseated. Downey withdrew from the race before the primary and supported a third candidate, Manchester Boddy, the owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News. When Gahagan Douglas defeated Boddy for the nomination, Downey endorsed the Republican nominee, U.S. Representative Richard M. Nixon. Fellow Representative John F. Kennedy quietly donated money to Nixon's campaign against Gahagan Douglas, Kennedy and Nixon sharing similar views on the threat of communism. In a race that was remembered as one of the most vicious in California political history, Nixon's charges were intentionally directed towards the assassination of Gahagan Douglas's character. Further, money from oil companies was pouring into the state to tilt the balance in favor of Nixon. ==Later life==

It was rumored that Gahagan Douglas would have been given a political appointment in the Truman administration, but that the Nixon–Douglas race had made such an appointment too controversial for Truman. Democratic National Committee vice-chair India Edwards, a Gahagan Douglas supporter, remarked that Gahagan Douglas could not have been appointed dogcatcher. She returned to acting in 1952, However, Gahagan Douglas's subsequent opposition to the Vietnam War angered Johnson, estranging him from her. She also campaigned for George McGovern in his unsuccessful bid to prevent Nixon's 1972 re-election, and she called for Nixon's removal from office during the Watergate scandal. During and after the Watergate scandal, bumper stickers featuring the legend "Don't blame me, I voted for Helen Gahagan Douglas" cropped up on cars in California. In October 1973, Gahagan Douglas was among the first women featured on the cover of Ms. magazine. At its 1979 commencement ceremonies, Barnard College awarded Gahagan Douglas its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction. She died the following year from breast and lung cancer, with her husband Melvyn by her side. ==Legacy==

Senator Alan Cranston of California eulogized her on the floor of the Senate on August 5, 1980, saying, "I believe Helen Gahagan Douglas was one of the grandest, most eloquent, deepest-thinking people we have had in American politics. She stands among the best of our 20th-century leaders, rivaling even Eleanor Roosevelt in stature, compassion and simple greatness." A collection of Helen Gahagan Douglas's papers spanning her life and career are held by the Carl Albert Center. == Electoral history ==