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

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.

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.

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 and 1973. Following her retirement from politics in the early 1970s, Harden returned to her home in Covington, Indiana. She spent her final years in an assisted living facility.