Harden, Cecil M. (Cecil Murray), 1894-1984

<p>Cecil Murray Harden rose through the ranks of the Republican Party in her state and nationally before winning her first campaign for elective office to the House of Representatives. Harden eventually served five terms, making her one of the longest-serving women at the time of her retirement in 1959. “There is no game more fascinating, no game more important, than the great game of politics as we play it here in America,” Harden said early in her public career. “The more interest you take in politics, the more you meet your responsibilities as a citizen.”</p>

<p>Cecil Murray was born November 21, 1894, in Covington, Indiana, daughter of Timothy J. Murray, a real estate broker and longtime local Democratic leader, and Jennie Clotfelter Murray. She attended public schools in Covington and entered Indiana University. Later that year she left to teach school in Troy Township, Indiana, and in the public schools in Covington. On December 22, 1914, she married Frost Revere Harden, who eventually became a Covington automobile dealer. They had one son, Murray.</p>

<p>Cecil Harden took an active interest in politics after President Herbert Hoover appointed her husband postmaster of Covington. A year later, when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, appointed a Democrat to the position, she became involved in the local Republican committee, which often held its meetings in the hall above her husband’s automobile showroom. In 1932 Harden was elected the Republican precinct vice chair, a position she held until 1940. In 1938 she won the vice chair of the Fountain County Republican Party (which she held until 1950) and was made vice chair of an Indiana congressional district. She became a member of the Republican National Speakers Bureau in 1940. From 1944 to 1959, Harden served as a Republican National Committeewoman from Indiana. She was an at-large delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1948, 1952, 1956, and 1968. In 1949 GOP National Chairman Hugh Doggett Scott Jr. named Harden to a special steering group to map Republican strategy in between regular meetings of the whole committee. “I believe that the American people are basically opposed to the trend our domestic affairs has been taking,” Harden said, reflecting on 16 years of Democratic Party rule in the White House. “I am confident that once the Republican Party advances a concrete program for a revision of this trend toward socialism, the American people will rally behind us in overwhelming numbers.</p>

<p>Cecil Murray Harden (November 21, 1894 – December 5, 1984) was an American educator who became a Republican politician and an advocate of women's rights. She served five terms in the U.S. Representative (January 3, 1949 to January 3, 1959) representing Indiana's 6th congressional district. Harden was the only Republican woman elected to represent Indiana in the U.S. Congress until 2012, when Susan Brooks and Jackie Walorski were elected to serve in the 113th United States Congress beginning in January 2013.</p>

<p>Initially assigned to the Veterans' Affairs Committee in the 81st Congress, the next term she transferred to the House Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments (later called Government Operations), where she served as the chair of the Inter-Governmental Relations subcommittee of Government Operations during the 83rd Congress. Harden also served six years (1953–59) on the Committee on the Post Office and Civil Service during the Eisenhower administration. In 1957 Harden and U.S. Representative Florence Dwyer proposed legislation in the U.S. House in support of equal pay for women. Harden also joined with U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith and U.S. Representative Frances Bolton to encourage inclusion of issues of interest to women in the Republican Party's platform. In addition, Harden helped her constituents in Indiana by securing federal funding for flood control projects, especially in the Wabash River valley, and was critical of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's plan in 1956 to close its heavy water plant in Dana, Indiana.</p>

<p>Harden, who became in politics in 1932, served as the Republican precinct vice chairman from 1932 to 1940; vice chairman of the Fountain County, Indiana, Republican Party from 1938 until 1950; Indiana's Republican National committeewoman from 1944 to 1959 and from 1964 to 1972; and delegate-at-large to the Republican National Conventions in 1948, 1952, 1956, 1968, and in 1972. Harden was appointed to serve as special assistant for women's affairs to U.S. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield (March 1959 to March 1961) and served on the National Advisory Committee for the White House Conference on Aging in 1972–73.</p>