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 President 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.

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.

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.

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.