What Everyone Should Know is a bi-weekly column on Women’s History.

The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. ~Margaret Chase Smith

Few women in politics have had the tenure and stature of Margaret Chase Smith, and fewer still have pursued the range of opportunities available in national politics. Serving first in the House of Representatives for four consecutive terms, Smith eventually won a seat in the Senate in 1948, and in doing so became the first female politician to serve in both houses of Congress. In 1964 she ran for President on the Republican Party ticket, where she became the first women to have her name introduced for nomination at a national convention by either major party. Smith was also a woman of great moral character, and she risked her own political career when she stood up to her own party by denouncing Senator Joseph McCarthy.  Margaret Chase Smith was the kind of politicians we don’t see anymore, and maybe we never saw them in any great number. She may even be a case in point for why we need more women in politics, and why that argument is now so urgent.

Born in Skowhegan, Maine, Margaret Chase was a working girl who was employed as a teacher, a telephone operator, and circulation manager for a newspaper before becoming politically active in local women’s groups. She married Clyde Smith when she was 33, and it was his election to the House of Representatives that eventually lead to her career. As we’ve discuss in this series before, many of the women who broke those early political barriers were related to male politicians, most often marriage but sometimes by birth. Chase Smith was elected after the death of her husband in 1940. She served four terms in the House before running for the Senate in 1948, where she served until 1973.

Until 1954, Margaret Chase Smith served as the only female in the Senate. She remained throughout her tenure one of a very few women to hold the office, and left her post with the all-time Senate ranking of #11 in terms of tenure, a  record she still holds. For her third bid for Senator, in 1960 Maine saw the kind of political contest that readers of The New Agenda dream about: A race with two women. Lucia Cormier was the Democratic opposing candidate, and it was the first time two women ran against each other for a Senate race. Americans would not see such a race between two female candidates for Senate again until 1986. Cormier had serious credentials of her own; she had led the Democrats as floor leader in the state congress, becoming the first woman in Maine to do so. The campaign between the two women was by all accounts characterized by dignity and integrity.

It was her speech on the Senate floor in 1950, however, which would live in history and still holds relevance today, a speech called Declaration of Conscience (pdf), which would catapult her to national attention. In her speech, in which she claimed to speak “as a Republican… as a woman… as a United States Senator [and]…as an American,” Senator Smith criticized the turn the Senate had taken when Senator McCarthy began his investigation of “un-American” activities, and warned both parties against the calamity that is partisan politics. Though she never mentioned his name, her speech so angered Senator McCarthy that he gave her an unflattering nickname, and worse, had her removed from a prominent committee assignment. He also unsuccessfully attempted to fund a primary campaign challenger during her next election.

Today, more than fourteen years after her death, Margaret Chase Smith stands as a testament to what women can accomplish in office, and the important, diverse point of view they bring to the table. Sadly, before McCarthy was censured in 1954, the only woman in the Senate at the time was the first to speak openly about what was happening. Few of the 99 men who worked with her risked speaking out at the time. We continue to see the echo of this dynamic when we consider, for example, Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers versus Brooksley Born and Shelia Blair and the reckless policies that led to the economic circumstances we currently face.

This is why it is so important to push against the representational disparity women still face. We currently have a disparity of 84% men to 16% women in the current national Congressional make up. The disparity is 76% men to 24% women when we consider state congresses, and some states have female representation as low as 11%. There has never been a female president or vice president. This is the disparity we must address, and perhaps we can do so by pointing out those exceptional cases, like that of Margaret Chase Smith.