Page "Mary Dewson" Paragraph 4

In 1928, Dewson entered politics more personally, organizing Democratic women for Al Smith's presidential campaign at Eleanor Roosevelt's request.

She performed a similar feat for Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1930 gubernatorial and 1932 presidential races.

Because of her work on FDR's campaigns ( and ER's intense lobbying ), Dewson was appointed head of the Democratic National Committee's Women's Division ( DNC ).

She reorganized the division to be utterly different.

She found government jobs for female party workers, more than had been given to women under any previous administration.

She is credited with securing the post of secretary of labor for Frances Perkins, and placing women high up in the Social Security and National Recovery Administrations.

Even so, she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment.

Despite this opposition, she began to push for state laws or state party rulings that would provide even representation in membership and leadership positions for women on party committees from the precinct level up.

She created the Reporter Plan, which educated female party workers on New Deal programs so that they could explain them to voters.

In the 1936 election, the women's division provided 90 percent of the campaign fliers the DNC produced.

That same year she got a rule passed that provided for a member and an alternate for each state on the DNC Platform Committee ; the rule also required that each pair be composed of one man and one woman.

Dewson's organizational abilities so impressed FDR that he nicknamed her " the little general.