Douglas, Emily Taft, 1899-1994

<p>In 1944 Emily Taft Douglas, a proponent of overseas humanitarian projects and a postwar United Nations Organization, defeated one of the most strident isolationists in the House of Representatives, heralding, as some observers believed, the triumph of American internationalism. “We, ourselves, must have faith in the doctrine of collective security as a bulwark against another war and chaos,” Representative Douglas said. “We must be prepared to make whatever compromises and sacrifices that security demands."</p>

<p>Emily Taft was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 10, 1899, one of three daughters of the famous sculptor Larado Taft and Ada Bartlett Taft. President William H. Taft was a distant cousin. She grew up in Chicago and traveled widely with her father during his frequent lecture and teaching tours in the United States and Europe. President Woodrow Wilson’s effort to coax the United States into the League of Nations, though unsuccessful, convinced Emily Taft to register as a Democrat. She graduated with honors a year early, in 1920, from the University of Chicago, with a BA in economics and political science. After graduating, she embarked on a theatrical career. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City. Emily Taft joined national theatrical tours, winning acclaim as the lead in a Broadway production of The Cat and the Canary. She also became active in Illinois politics, as a protégé of pioneer women state legislators. She served as the organizing secretary for the Illinois League of Women Voters and, in that capacity, met her future husband, Paul Howard Douglas, a University of Chicago economics professor and future U.S. Senator. They married in 1931 and raised one daughter, Jean.</p>

<p>The Douglases took up the internationalist cause after a 1935 trip to Europe convinced them of the dangers of fascism in Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Adolf Hitler’s Germany. The couple returned to Chicago, where they began a public campaign to warn fellow citizens about the growing menace in Europe. In 1938 Paul Douglas won election as a Chicago alderman, and in 1942 he mounted an unsuccessful campaign as an independent Democrat for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. Ten days later, Paul Douglas enlisted in the Marines as a 50-year-old private, where he served in the Pacific theater in World War II and became a decorated combat veteran. Emily Douglas returned from the 1935 trip abroad to organize and chair the government and foreign policy department of the Illinois League of Women Voters. In 1942 she became executive secretary of the International Relations Center in Chicago. During the war, she also traveled widely to raise funds for the Red Cross organization.</p>

<p>Emily Taft Douglas (April 10, 1899 – January 28, 1994) was a Democratic Party politician from the U.S. state of Illinois. She served as a U.S. Representative at-large from 1945 until 1947 and was married to U.S. Senator Paul Douglas from 1931 until his death in 1976. She was the first female Democrat elected to Congress from Illinois, and her election made Illinois one of the first two states (the other was California) to have been represented by female House members from both parties.</p>

<p>She was the daughter of sculptor Lorado Taft and a distant relative of U.S. President William Howard Taft.</p>

<p>Born Emily Taft in Chicago, Illinois to sculptor Lorado Taft and his wife Ada Bartlett Taft, Emily Taft graduated from the University of Chicago Laboratory School and then the University of Chicago with honors in French. She joined the Democratic Party because of her support for Woodrow Wilson's push for the League of Nations. After graduating from the University of Chicago she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. She was a working actress for two years before going to work for the League of Women Voters in 1924. She married University of Chicago economics professor Paul Douglas in 1931, who she had met through League of Women Voters functions.</p>