Back in days of yore there was a book on “Eminent Victorians” – British folks from the high days of the British Empire. The book was famed for dishing the dirt.
*For some time now I’ve been ruminating on a POSITIVE series about “Eminent Rochestrians,” and who better to launch this intermittent series than Louise Slaughter.
*Her story started in 1929. Herbert Hoover became president in March of that year, and the stock market crashed in September, making her a child of the Great Depression. It was 81 years since the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, and nine years since the 20th amendment opened up voting to all American women. Talking movies were just becoming popular. Lindberg had flown the Atlantic two years earlier. Racial segregation looked like it would last forever.
*Her father was a blacksmith. One of her sisters died, of pneumonia, in childhood. She graduated from high school which, while not uncommon by then, was definitely still not the rule. Then she went to the University of Kentucky for a bachelor’s degree in microbiology, and a master’s in public health.
*At this point she was indeed venturing into the realm of the uncommon. Women were usually discouraged from hard science fields, and those who persevered were still pretty much considered quirks of nature. Besides getting the degrees, she convinced Procter & Gamble to hire her.
*Even so, once she married she followed her husband’s work to Kodak and Rochester, where the couple reared three children. Over time she became more and more involved in community activism and then in elective politics, serving in Monroe County Legislature and the New York State Assembly before winning her seat in Congress in 1982. She successfully defended that seat 15 times – enough times to become the oldest sitting Member of Congress. She was the only microbiologist in Congress, and the only woman ever to chair the House Rules Committe (often called the POWERFUL House Rules Committee). She was 88 when she died earlier this month. (Her husband predeceased her four years ago.)
*Besides being a trailblazing woman in science and in politics (as if that wasn’t enough!), she co-authored the Violence Against Women Act, and wrote the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. She helped lead fights for breast cancer research, genetic information non-discrimination, and better body armor for military personnel.
*She also secured substantial funding for R.I.T., for U. of R., and for building Rochester’s new Amtrak station – which will now be named in her honor, as is a hall at R.I.T. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and the great John Lewis have carved time at short notice from their hectic schedules to come and speak at her funeral. Quite a life, Louise. Well done. Safe journey.