Geraldine Anne Ferraro (born August 26, 1935) is an American attorney, a Democratic Party politician and a former member of the United States House of Representatives. She was the first female Vice Presidential candidate representing a major American political party.
Ferraro grew up in New York and became a teacher and lawyer. She joined the Queens County District Attorney's Office in 1974, where she headed the new Special Victims Bureau that dealt with sex crimes, child abuse, and domestic violence. She was elected to Congress in 1978, where she rose rapidly in the party hierarchy while focusing on legislation to bring equity for women in the areas of wages, pensions, and retirement plans. In 1984, former Vice President and presidential candidate Walter Mondale selected Ferraro to be his running mate in the upcoming election. In doing so she became the only Italian American to be a major-party national nominee in addition to being the first woman. The positive polling the Mondale-Ferarro ticket received when she joined it faded as questions arose about the finances of her and her husband. In the general election, Mondale and Ferraro were defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush.
Ferraro ran campaigns for a seat in the United States Senate from New York in 1992 and 1998, both times emerging as the front-runner for her party's nomination but losing in primary elections both times. She served as a United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1993 until 1996 in the presidential administration of Bill Clinton. She has also continued her career as a journalist, author, and businesswoman, and served in the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Early life and education
Ferraro was born in Newburgh, New York, the daughter of Antonetta L. (née Corrieri), a first-generation Italian American seamstress, and Dominick Ferraro, an Italian immigrant and owner of two restaurants. Geraldine had three older brothers, two of whom died early in life – one in infancy and one at age three. She attended the parochial school Mount Saint Mary's in Newburgh when she was young, but Geraldine's father died of a heart attack in May 1944 when she was eight. Geraldine's mother soon invested and lost the remainder of the family's money, forcing the family to move to a low income area in the South Bronx while Geraldine's mother worked in the garment industry to support them.
Geraldine stayed on at Mount Saint Mary's as a boarder for a while, then briefly went to parochial school in the South Bronx. Beginning in 1947, Ferraro attended and lived at the parochial Marymount Academy in Tarrytown, New York, using income from a family rental property in Italy and skipping seventh grade. At Marymount she was a member of the honor society, active in several clubs and sports, and voted most likely to succeed; she graduated in 1952. Her mother was adamant that she get a full education, despite an uncle in the family saying "Why bother? She's pretty. She's a girl. She'll get married." Ferraro attended Marymount Manhattan College with a scholarship while sometimes holding two or three jobs at the same time. During her senior year she began dating John Zaccaro of Forest Hills, Queens, who had graduated from Iona College with a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps. Ferraro received a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1956; she was the first woman in her family to gain a college degree. She also passed the city exam to become a licensed school teacher.
Ferraro began working as an elementary school teacher in public schools in Astoria, Queens, "because that's what women were supposed to do." Unsatisfied, she decided to attend law school; an admissions officer said to her, "I hope you're serious, Gerry. You're taking a man's place, you know." She earned a Juris Doctor degree with honors from Fordham University School of Law in 1960, going to classes at night while continuing to work as a second-grade teacher at schools such as P.S. 57 during the day. Ferraro was one of only two women in her graduating class of 179. She was admitted to the bar of New York State in March 1961.
Family, lawyer, prosecutor
Ferraro became engaged to Zaccaro in August 1959 and married him on July 16, 1960. He became a realtor and businessman. She kept her birth name professionally, as a way to honor her mother for having supported the family after her father's death, but used his name in parts of her private life. The couple has three children, Donna (born 1962), John Jr. (born 1964), and Laura (born 1966). They lived in Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, and in 1971 added a vacation house in Saltaire on Fire Island. They would buy a condominium in Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1983.
While raising the children, Ferraro worked part-time as a civil lawyer in her husband's real estate firm for 13 years. She also occasionally worked for other clients and did some pro bono work for women in family court. She spent time at local Democratic clubs, which allowed her to maintain contacts within the legal profession and become involved in local politics and campaigns. In 1970, she was elected president of the Queens County Women's Bar Association.
Ferraro's first full-time political job came in January 1974 when she was appointed Assistant District Attorney for Queens County, New York by her cousin, District Attorney Nicholas Ferraro. At the time, women prosecutors in the city were uncommon. Grumblings that she was the beneficiary of nepotism were countered by her being rated as qualified by a screening committee and by her early job performance in the Investigations Bureau. The following year, Ferraro was assigned to the new Special Victims Bureau, which prosecuted cases involving rape, child abuse, spouse abuse, and domestic violence. She was named head of the unit in 1977, with two other assistant district attorneys assigned to her. In this role, she became a strong advocate for abused children. She was admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court Bar in 1978.
As part of the D.A. office, Ferraro worked long hours, and gained a reputation for being a tough prosecutor but fair in plea negotiations. Although her unit was supposed to turn cases over for court handling, she conducted some trials herself, and juries were persuaded by the summations she gave. Ferraro was upset to discover that her superior was paying her less than equivalent male colleagues because she was a married woman and already had a husband. Moreover, Ferraro found the nature of the cases she dealt with debilitating; the work left her "drained and angry" and she developed an ulcer. She grew frustrated that she was unable to deal with root causes, and talked about running for legislative office.
House of Representatives
Ferraro ran for election to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 9th Congressional District in Queens in 1978, after longtime Democratic incumbent James Delaney announced his retirement. The fictional location for the television series All in the Family , the district was known for its ethnic composition and conservative views. In a three-candidate primary race for the Democratic nomination, Ferraro faced two better-known rivals, including the party organization candidate, City Councilman Thomas J. Manton. Her main issues were law and order, support for the elderly, and neighborhood preservation. She labeled herself a "'small c' conservative" and emphasized that she was not a bleeding-heart liberal; her campaign slogan was "Finally, A Tough Democrat". Her Italian heritage also appealed to ethnic residents in the district. She won the three-way primary with 53 percent of the vote, and then captured the general election as well, defeating Republican Alfred A. DelliBovi by a 10 percentage point margin in a contest in which dealing with crime was the major issue and personal attacks by DelliBovi were frequent. She had been aided by some $130,000 in campaign funds from her own family, including $110,000 in loans from Zaccaro. The source and nature of these transactions were declared illegal by the Federal Election Commission shortly before the primary, causing Ferraro to pay back the loans in October 1978 via several real estate transactions. In 1979, the campaign and Zaccaro paid $750 in fines for civil violations of election law.
Despite being a newcomer to the House, Ferraro made a vivid impression upon arrival and quickly found prominence. She became a protégé of House Speaker Tip O'Neil, established a rapport with other House Democratic leaders, and rose rapidly in the party hierarchy. She was elected to be the Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus for 1981–1983 and again for 1983–1985; this entitled her to a seat on the influential Steering and Policy Committee. In 1983, she was named to the powerful House Budget Committee. She also served on the Public Works and Transportation Committee and the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, both of which allowed Ferraro to push through projects to benefit her district. Male colleagues viewed her with respect as someone who was tough and ambitious.
Ferraro was active in Democratic presidential politics as well. She served as one of the deputy chairs for t
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