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Famous American Women Politicians: Clare Boothe Luce

Totalitarianism

Before Hilary Clinton, there was Clare Boothe Luce. Married to one of the most powerful men in the world, she made her mark on American politics and literature.

Who is Clare Booth Luce?
Born in New York City on March 10, 1903, Luce spent her early years in New York, Nashville, and Chicago. Her father moved the family often across the country. Eventually, he left the family. Luce’s mother moved the family back to New England. She enrolled Luce in school and pushed her to marry a wealthy man.. At twenty, Luce married the wealthy George Brokaw of Greenwich, Connecticut. Her only child Ann came from this union. She divorced her alcoholic husband in 1929.

Luce moved to New York and embarked on a career as a literary figure. Luce held editorial positions at Vogue and later Vanity Fair. During this time, Luce began to write plays, published a collection of short stories. She also enjoyed the friendship of prominent men like New Dealer Bernard Baruch. At that time, her politics were sympathetic to the New Deal. After being pursued by Henry Robins Luce (the publisher of Time) who was married when they first met, Luce married him in 1935.

The Women: A Play on the Duplicity of Women.
Around this time, Luce gained a reputation as a solid playwright. In December 1936, Luce’s most recognized play, The Women debuted. This play achieved noted success on Broadway. Her following plays — Kiss the Boys Goodbye (1938) and Margin for Error (1939)– achieved some success, too.

The Women is remembered for its witty satire of upper class society women. It was remade into a popular film, too. The play revolved around the idea that women as the pursued men and money were vicious to each other. The play starts off with an innocent society matron being told to go to visit a salon to get her nails done. Her friends jealous of her descriptions of idyllic married life send her to the salon where the nail attendant is spreading news of her husband’s infidelity to all of Manhattan. In The Group, Luce caricatures women competing with each other for men for material or psychological gain, and the effects of men viewing women not as individuals but stereotypes.

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Citizen of the World
During World War II, Luce reported on world politics. Luce began to travel for Life as a war correspondent in 1940. Her initial travels resulted in the popular book Europe in the Spring (1940) that analyzed a continent gripped by communism and totalitarianism. Traveling with her husband Henry, she reported during 1941 and 1942 on the war in the Pacific and Africa.

American Politician and Public Servant
No longer an admire of Roosevelt, Luce campaigned against him in 1940 and ran on an anti-new Deal platform for Congress. Campaigning for Wendell Wilkie in 1940, Luce entered national politics. In 1942, Connecticut voters elected Luce to the congressional seat previously occupied by her recently deceased stepfather, Dr. Albert Austin. Aversion to the New Deal and strong interest in foreign policy defined the service of Representative Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT). Her daughter’s unexpected death in 1944 led to her decision to not run for re-election. Following World War II, Luce was a stalwart of the Republican Party. Her support of Eisenhower contributed to her appointment as Italian ambassador from 1952-1956. Her service characterized by ardent critiques of Italian communism and advocacy of laissez-faire economic principles. In 1959, opponents defeated her nomination for a Brazil ambassadorship. In 1964, Luce spoke on behalf of Barry Goldwater as the Republic convention.

As a public servant, Luce’s political ideology stressed the importance of protecting the individual from communism and totalitarianism.

Catholicism
Her daughter’s death spurred Luce’s conversion to Catholicism under the direction of Bishop Fulton Sheen in 1946. Her most recognizable religious work was Saints for Now (1952). In the book, she had famous Americans describe their favorite saints. Given her fame, Luce found herself in the spotlight as Catholics moved to the mainstream of American culture.

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Remembering Clare Booth Luce
Clare Boothe Luce is a dynamic figure and one of the most accomplished women in twentieth century. Following her passions with determination and verve, Luce made her mark in American society and history. She did all this with never losing her femininity or good humor. She is best remembered in her own words:

A man has only one escape from his old self: to see a different self-in the mirror of some woman’s eyes.” (The Women, 1936)

“Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals [with] no cure except as a guillotine might be called a cure for dandruff.” (Newsweek, 1955)

“But if God had wanted us to think just with our wombs, why did He give us a brain?” (Slam the Door Softly, 1970)