Table Of ContentMrs.
AMBASSADOR
Mrs.
AMBASSADOR
THE LIFE AND POLITICS OF
Eugenie Anderson
MARY DUPONT
The publication of this book was supported though a generous grant from the Eugenie M. Anderson Women
in Public Affairs Fund.
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CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Preface
One
LEAVING THE TOWER
Two
JOINING THE PARTY
Three
REPRESENTING AMERICA
Four
REACHING FOR WASHINGTON
Five
BREACHING THE IRON CURTAIN
Six
HOLDING THE LINE
Seven
PASSING THE STANDARD
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Mrs.
AMBASSADOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
A
LL BIOGRAPHIES START WITH THE SAME COMMITMENT: that the subject is worthy
of our attention. From there, the writer has countless choices to consider and a
thousand narrative paths to follow or abandon. No single biography can, or
should, capture and relay every detail from the subject’s life; therefore, each
biography becomes a story based on choices. I approached this biography of my
grandmother knowing that I would be discarding almost all of my own memories
and associations and relying, almost exclusively, on the words of others—most
importantly, on Eugenie Anderson’s own firsthand words. I deliberately chose to
incorporate hefty amounts of citations in Eugenie’s own voice, invoking her
logic and her cadence, allowing the reader not only to experience her verbal and
written words but also to note the omissions. I also made a conscious choice to
favor many firsthand voices of Eugenie’s contemporaries as her story
progressed: from early family letters; Minnesota historians (versus national
authors); journalists in their lingo of the day; later reminiscences and personal
letters by family members and political colleagues; and reflections by women
about women in politics and society. In narrowing this biography to a discussion
of Anderson’s place in mid-twentieth-century opportunities for women,
specifically in diplomacy, as well as her personal life, I deliberately abandoned
other narrative paths—paths I am confident are already or are yet to be covered
in excellent fashion by other historians and political writers.
Eugenie Anderson was my grandmother. I offer this portrait of one
interpretation of her life based on an interweaving of private and public aspects
that felt particularly compelling to me in our ever-changing political and social
climate.
PREFACE
E
UGENIE MOORE ANDERSON WAS A CONSTANT PRESENCE and an active influence
on the American political scene in the mid-twentieth century. She achieved a
historic diplomatic status when President Truman appointed her the first woman
to the rank of Ambassador for the United States in 1949. Over the course of her
career, international news and images of her engaged readers of thousands of
papers across the country and the world, through her high-level appointments to
postwar Denmark, Communist Bulgaria, and the United Nations. Until now,
however, the story of her life, combined with her experience as a woman in
politics, her involvement in the Minnesota DFL Party and the national
Democratic Party, and the effect she had on the history of Minnesota and the
country, has not been told. Walter Mondale says: “Eugenie was one of the giants
of the DFL Party … a gifted, scholarly, kindly, totally aware person. Probably
[Hubert] Humphrey’s best friend.”1
Eugenie was not in a position to ask if a woman could have it all; rather, she
concerned herself with protecting the democratic system that would enable other
women, and men, to pursue such questions.
This biography of Minnesota’s Eugenie Anderson will explore not only how
her life was influenced as a woman by the politics and expectations of her
century but how she directly influenced twentieth-century politics and history. Jo
Freeman, feminist author and civil rights activist whose work spans over fifty
years, wrote, “It took the concentrated efforts of both insiders and outsiders to
hoist women’s political participation beyond the level of tokenism.” Eugenie
began, naturally, as an outsider. Friend, adviser, and campaigner for future vice
president Hubert Humphrey, she launched her own career after meeting the
women who were insiders: Eleanor Roosevelt and Democratic National
Committee vice chairman India Edwards. It was through the combined
sponsorship of Minnesota men like Humphrey and Governor Orville Freeman,
and women with direct ties to the White House like Roosevelt and Edwards, that
Eugenie burst into national view, seemingly from nowhere. Her own strategies
for staying in the game proved just as valuable as sponsorship by others. Eugenie
