Watch Dr. Darla Shaw of the Ridgefield Historical Society portray Clare Boothe Luce
(1903 - 1987) and describe her life while in-character.
Clare Boothe Luce (born March 10, 1903, New York, New York, U.S.—died October 9, 1987, Washington, D.C.) was an American playwright, politician, and celebrity, noted for her satiric sense of humour and for her role in American politics. [...]
Luce was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Connecticut, serving from 1943 to 1947, and became influential in Republican Party politics. After the death of her 19-year-old daughter in a car accident in 1944, she began conversations with the Reverend Fulton J. Sheen, which resulted in her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1946.
Luce served as ambassador to Italy from 1953 to 1956, was a public supporter of Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, and served on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and ’80s. Continue reading from Britannica
Clare Boothe Luce blazed many trails for women in her lifetime, as editor of Vanity Fair magazine, a front-line female European and Asian war journalist in WWII, an acclaimed author and playwright, a two-term U.S. Congresswoman, and as the first woman to be appointed U.S. Ambassador to a major nation (first Italy and then Brazil). As a journalist, she wrote extensively about the dangers posed by the dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini. As a playwright, her brilliant satire came to the fore in The Women, a smash hit opening on Broadway in 1936 and later as a film. As the first woman member of Congress representing Connecticut and as a diplomat, she was recognized as a persistent and effective advocate of freedom, both home and abroad. Long before national attention focused on the dearth of women in the science, math and engineering fields, Ms. Luce was instrumental in the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission and later established an endowment (the Clare Boothe Luce Program) for what has become one of the single most significant sources of private support for women in science, mathematics and engineering. Thus far, the endowment has supported more than 1,900 women pursuing careers in these fields. Clare Boothe Luce was recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983. Continue reading from National Women's Hall of Fame
Clare Boothe Luce (Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame)
Women Come to the Front (Library of Congress)
In Search of Clare Boothe Luce (The New York Times)
The Life of the Extraordinary Clare Boothe Luce (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)
Clare Boothe Luce, Renaissance Woman, Dies at 84 (The Washington Post)
