Geraldine Ferraro

Geraldine Anne Ferraro (August 26, 1935 – March 26, 2011) was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney.

Geraldine Anne Ferraro was born on August 26, 1935, in Newburgh, New York, the daughter of Antonetta L. Ferraro (née Corrieri), a first-generation Italian American seamstress, and Dominick Ferraro, an Italian immigrant (from Marcianise, Campania) and owner of two restaurants.

She had three brothers born before her, but one died in infancy and another at age three.

Ferraro attended the parochial school Mount Saint Mary's in Newburgh when she was young.

Her father died of a heart attack in May 1944, when she was eight.

Ferraro's mother soon invested and lost the remainder of the family's money, forcing the family to move to a low-income area in the South Bronx while Ferraro's mother worked in the garment industry to support them.

Ferraro stayed on at Mount Saint Mary's as a boarder for a while, then briefly attended a parochial school in the South Bronx.

Beginning in 1947, she attended and lived at the parochial Marymount Academy in Tarrytown, New York, using income from a family rental property in Italy and skipping seventh grade.

At Marymount Ferraro was a member of the honor society, active in several clubs and sports, voted most likely to succeed, and graduated in 1952.

Her mother was adamant that she get a full education, despite an uncle in the family saying, "Why bother? She's pretty. She's a girl. She'll get married."

Ferraro attended Marymount Manhattan College with a scholarship while sometimes holding two or three jobs at the same time.

During her senior year she began dating John Zaccaro of Forest Hills, Queens, who had graduated from Iona College with a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Ferraro received a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1956; she was the first woman in her family to gain a college degree.

She also passed the city exam to become a licensed school teacher.

Ferraro began working as an elementary school teacher in public schools in Astoria, Queens, "because that's what women were supposed to do."

Unsatisfied, she decided to attend law school; an admissions officer said to her, "I hope you're serious, Gerry. You're taking a man's place, you know."

She earned a Juris Doctor degree with honors from Fordham University School of Law in 1960, going to classes at night while continuing to work as a second-grade teacher at schools such as P.S. 57 during the day.

Ferraro was one of only two women in her graduating class of 179.

Ferraro became engaged to Zaccaro in August 1959 and married him on July 16, 1960.

He became a realtor and businessman.

She kept her birth name professionally, as a way to honor her mother for having supported the family after her father's death, but used his name in parts of her private life.

She was admitted to the bar of New York State in March 1961.

The couple had three children, Donna (born 1962), John Jr. (born 1964), and Laura (born 1966).

They lived in Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, and in 1971, added a vacation house in Saltaire on Fire Island.

She joined the Queens County District Attorney's Office in 1974, heading the new Special Victims Bureau that dealt with sex crimes, child abuse, and domestic violence.

In 1978 she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she rose rapidly in the party hierarchy while focusing on legislation to bring equity for women in the areas of wages, pensions, and retirement plans.

She served in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1985, and was the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee in the 1984 presidential election, running alongside Walter Mondale; this made her the first female vice-presidential nominee representing a major American political party.

She was also a journalist, author, and businesswoman.

Ferraro grew up in New York City and worked as a public school teacher before training as a lawyer.

They would buy a condominium in Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1983.

While raising the children, Ferraro worked part-time as a civil lawyer in her husband's real estate firm for 13 years.

She also occasionally worked for other clients and did some pro bono work for women in family court.

In 1984, former vice president and presidential candidate Walter Mondale, seen as an underdog, selected Ferraro to be his running mate in the upcoming election.

In doing so Ferraro also became the first widely recognized Italian American to be a major-party national nominee.

The positive polling the Mondale-Ferraro ticket received when she joined soon faded, as damaging questions arose about her and her businessman husband's finances and wealth and her congressional disclosure statements.

In the general election, Mondale and Ferraro were defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush.

Ferraro twice ran campaigns for a seat in the United States Senate from New York, in 1992 and in 1998, both times starting as the front-runner for her party's nomination before losing in the primary election.

She served as the Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1993 until 1996 during the presidential administration of Bill Clinton.

She also continued her career as a journalist, author, and businesswoman, and served in the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton.

Ferraro died in 2011 from multiple myeloma, 12 years after being diagnosed.