Groundbreakers
(1943- ) Candy Yaghjian Waites represented S.C. House District 75 from 1988 until 1994. Waites received her B.A. from Wheaton College in 1965 and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of South Carolina in 1997. Waites made national…
Groundbreakers
(1951- ) Inez Moore Tenenbaum was sworn in on June 23, 2009 as the ninth Chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The term expires in October 2013. Tenenbaum served as South Carolina’s State Superintendent of Education from…
Groundbreakers
(1928-2001) Ferdinan Backer Nancy Stevenson served as South Carolina’s first woman lieutenant governor from 1979 to 1983, presiding over an all-male Senate. Upon her election, she noted her intention to provide active leadership and not defer to senior senators like…
Groundbreakers
(1883 – 1942) Once women achieved the right to vote in 1920 Lena Springs, from Lancaster, SC, became the first women nominated for Vice-President of the United States in 1924. She had been a suffragist since WWI and had worked…
Groundbreakers
(1929-2019) Rudnick served in the S.C. House from Aiken Co. from 1973 to 1978, 1981 to 1984, and 1987 to 1994. Born in Columbia, Rudnick received her A. B. degree in 1949 and law degree in 1952, both from the…
Groundbreakers
(1939-2018) Liz Johnston Patterson, daughter of the late Olin D. Johnston, served South Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District from 1987-93 as the second female ever elected to federal office from the State. Prior to her terms in Congress, Liz was a…
Groundbreakers
(1942- ) Dr. Barbara Nielsen served South Carolina from 1990 – 1998 as South Carolina State Superintendent of Education, the second woman to be elected to statewide office in her own right. Her two terms at Chief Executive Officer for…
Groundbreakers
(1894-1976) The wife of S.C. congressman Thomas S. McMillan was elected to Congress to serve the remainder of her deceased husband’s term, 1939-1940. Clara Eloise Gooding completed a teacher training course at the Confederate Home College in Charleston in 1915…
Groundbreakers
(1918-2012) Mason, the second woman elected to the S.C. Senate, served from 1967 to 1968, representing Clarendon and Sumter counties. She received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of South Carolina. She practiced law in Manning in the…
Groundbreakers
(1922-2010) This Democrat and self-proclaimed “New York Jewish liberal,” represented Beaufort County in the SC House of Representatives from 1977 until her retirement in 1993. She was a tireless advocate of the arts, education, and the protection of the environment…