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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—CaliforniaDOUGLAS, Helen Gahagan
(1900—1980)
DOUGLAS, Helen Gahagan, a Representative from California; born in Boonton, Morris County, N.J., November 25, 1900; attended the public schools, Berkeley School for Girls, Brooklyn, N.Y., Capen School for Girls, Northampton, Mass., and Barnard College, New York City; moved to Los Angeles, Calif., in 1931; engaged in the theatrical profession and also as an opera singer 1922-1938; Democratic National committeewoman for California 1940-1944; vice chairman of the Democratic State central committee and chairman of the women’s division 1940-1944; member of the national advisory committee of the Works Progress Administration and of the State committee of the National Youth Administration in 1939 and 1940; member of the board of governors of the California Housing and Planning Association in 1942 and 1943; appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a member of the Voluntary Participation Committee, Office of Civilian Defense; appointed by President Harry S. Truman as alternate United States Delegate to the United Nations Assembly; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-ninth, Eightieth, and Eighty-first Congresses (January 3, 1945-January 3, 1951); was not a candidate for renomination in 1950, but was unsuccessful for election to the United States Senate; lecturer and author; appointed by President Johnson as Special Ambassador to head United States delegation to inauguration ceremonies of President William V.S. Tubman of Liberia in 1964; resided in New York City until her death on June 28, 1980.
Bibliography
Douglas, Helen Gahagan. A Full Life
. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982; Scobie, Ingrid Winther. Center Stage: Helen Gahagan Douglas, A Life.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Douglas, Helen Gahagan. The Eleanor Roosevelt We Remember.
New York: Hill and Wang, 1963.
———. A Full Life.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982.
———. “How I Conceive the Congresswoman’s Role During the Next Two Years.” Free World
8 (November 1944): 425-7.
O’Connor, Colleen Marie. “Imagine the Unimaginable: Helen Gahagan Douglas, Women, and the Bomb.” Southern California Quarterly
67 (Spring 1985): 35-50.
———. “Through the Valley of Darkness: Helen Gahagan Douglas’ Congressional Years.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, San Diego, 1982.
“Helen Gahagan Douglas” in Women in Congress, 1917-1990.
Prepared under the direction of the Commission on the Bicentenary by the Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1991.
Scobie, Ingrid Winther. Center Stage: Helen Gahagan Douglas, A Life
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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