111 Facts About Geraldine Ferraro

Geraldine Anne Ferraro was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney.

Geraldine Ferraro 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.

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

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

The positive polling the Mondale-Geraldine 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.

Geraldine 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Geraldine Ferraro's father died of a heart attack in, when she was eight.

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

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

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

Geraldine Ferraro passed the city exam to become a licensed school teacher.

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

Geraldine Ferraro was admitted to the bar of New York State in.

Geraldine Ferraro became engaged to Zaccaro in and married him on, 1960.

Geraldine Ferraro 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.

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

Geraldine Ferraro spent time at local Democratic clubs, which allowed her to maintain contacts within the legal profession and become involved in local politics and campaigns.

Geraldine Ferraro was named head of the unit in 1977, with two other assistant district attorneys assigned to her.

Geraldine Ferraro was admitted to the US Supreme Court Bar in 1978.

Geraldine Ferraro was upset to discover that her superior was paying her less than equivalent male colleagues because she was a married woman and already had a husband.

Geraldine Ferraro grew frustrated that she was unable to deal with root causes, and talked about running for legislative office; Cuomo, now Secretary of State of New York, suggested the United States Congress.

Geraldine Ferraro ran for election to the US House of Representatives from New York's 9th Congressional District in Queens in 1978, after longtime Democratic incumbent James Delaney announced his retirement.

Geraldine Ferraro labeled herself a "'small c' conservative" and emphasized that she was not a bleeding-heart liberal; her campaign slogan was "Finally, A Tough Democrat".

Geraldine Ferraro had been aided by $130,000 in campaign loans and donations from her own family, including $110,000 in loans from Zaccaro, of which only $4,000 was legal.

The source and nature of these transactions were declared illegal by the Federal Election Commission shortly before the primary, causing Geraldine Ferraro to pay back the loans in, via several real estate transactions.

Geraldine Ferraro became a protege of House Speaker Tip O'Neil, established a rapport with other House Democratic leaders, and rose rapidly in the party hierarchy.

Geraldine Ferraro served on the Public Works and Transportation Committee and the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, both of which allowed Ferraro to push through projects to benefit her district.

Geraldine Ferraro served as one of the deputy chairs for the 1980 Carter-Mondale campaign.

Geraldine Ferraro was the Chairwoman of the Platform Committee for the 1984 Democratic National Convention, the first woman to hold that position.

Geraldine Ferraro was a cosponsor of the 1981 Economic Equity Act.

Geraldine Ferraro took a congressional trip to Nicaragua at the start of 1984, where she spoke to the Contras.

Geraldine Ferraro decided that the Reagan Administration's military interventions there and in El Salvador were counterproductive towards reaching US security goals, and that regional negotiations would be better.

Geraldine Ferraro broke with her party in favoring an anti-busing amendment to the Constitution.

Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro to be his vice-presidential candidate on, 1984.

Nevertheless, Geraldine Ferraro faced many press questions about her foreign policy inexperience, and responded by discussing her attention to foreign and national security issues in Congress.

The choice of Geraldine Ferraro was viewed as a gamble, and pundits were uncertain whether it would result in a net gain or loss of votes for the Mondale campaign.

Nonetheless, in the days after the convention Geraldine Ferraro proved an effective campaigner, with a brash and confident style that forcefully criticized the Reagan administration and sometimes almost overshadowed Mondale.

Geraldine Ferraro said she would release both their returns within a month, but maintained she was correct not to have included her husband's financial holdings on her past annual Congressional disclosure statements.

On, Geraldine Ferraro announced that her husband would not in fact be releasing his tax returns, on the grounds that to do so would disadvantage his real estate business and that such a disclosure was voluntary and not part of election law.

The tax announcement dominated television and newspapers, as Geraldine Ferraro was besieged by questions regarding her family finances.

Geraldine Ferraro said the statements proved overall that she had nothing to hide and that there had been no financial wrongdoing.

Geraldine Ferraro was criticized for saying that Reagan was not a "good Christian" because, she said, his policies hurt the poor.

At it, Geraldine Ferraro criticized Reagan's initial refusal to support an extension to the Voting Rights Act.

Geraldine Ferraro's experience was questioned at the debate and she was asked how her three terms in Congress stacked up with Bush's extensive government experience.

Geraldine Ferraro's mother had never told her about his arrest; she had been arrested as an accomplice but released after her husband's death.

Geraldine Ferraro's womanhood was consistently discussed during the campaign; one study found that a quarter of newspaper articles written about her contained gendered language.

Geraldine Ferraro is one of only four US women to run on a major party national ticket.

Geraldine Ferraro had relinquished her House seat to run for the vice presidency.

Geraldine Ferraro published Ferraro: My Story, an account of the campaign with some of her life leading up to it, in.

Geraldine Ferraro said her husband never would have been charged had she not run for vice president.

Geraldine Ferraro was convicted, and in, sentenced to four months' imprisonment; Ferraro broke down in tears in court relating the stress the episode had placed on her family.

Geraldine Ferraro worked on an unpublished book about the conflicting rights between a free press and being able to have fair trials.

Geraldine Ferraro remained active in raising money for Democratic candidates nationwide, especially women candidates.

Geraldine Ferraro founded the Americans Concerned for Tomorrow political action committee, which focused on getting ten women candidates elected in the 1986 Congressional elections.

Geraldine Ferraro's opponents were State Attorney General Robert Abrams, Reverend Al Sharpton, Congressman Robert J Mrazek, and New York City Comptroller and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman.

Geraldine Ferraro emphasized her career as a teacher, prosecutor, congresswoman, and mother, and talked about how she was tough on crime.

Geraldine Ferraro drew renewed attacks during the primary campaign from the media and her opponents over Zaccaro's finances and business relationships.

Geraldine Ferraro objected that a male candidate would not receive nearly as much attention regarding his wife's activities.

Geraldine Ferraro became the front-runner, capitalizing on her star power from 1984, and using the campaign attacks against her as an explicitly feminist rallying point for women voters.

Geraldine Ferraro said there had been efforts to oust the company at the time, but they had remained in the building for three more years.

Geraldine Ferraro said in response that those two had never met.

Geraldine Ferraro did not concede she had lost for two weeks.

Geraldine Ferraro, enraged and bitter after the nature of the primary, ignored Abrams and accepted Bill Clinton's request to campaign for his presidential bid instead.

Geraldine Ferraro was eventually persuaded by Governor Mario Cuomo and state party leaders into giving an unenthusiastic endorsement with just three days to go before the general election, in exchange for an apology by Abrams for the tone of the primary.

The Geraldine Ferraro-Holtzman fighting of the campaign was viewed as a disaster by many feminists with Geraldine Ferraro denied her political comeback while Holtzman politically damaged herself.

Geraldine Ferraro attended the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna as the alternate US delegate.

In February 1996, Geraldine Ferraro joined the high-visibility CNN political talk show Crossfire, as the co-host representing the "from the left" vantage.

Geraldine Ferraro kept her brassy, rapid-fire speech and New York accent intact, and her trial experience from her prosecutor days was a good fit for the program's format.

Geraldine Ferraro sparred effectively with "from the right" co-host Pat Buchanan, for whom she developed a personal liking.

At the start of 1998, Geraldine Ferraro left Crossfire and ran for the Democratic nomination again in the 1998 United States Senate election in New York.

Geraldine Ferraro had done no fundraising, out of fear of conflict of interest with her Crossfire job, but was nonetheless immediately perceived as the front-runner.

Schumer, a tireless fundraiser, outspent her by a five-to-one margin, and Geraldine Ferraro failed to establish a political image current with the times.

Geraldine Ferraro's rise was meteoric, her political career's denouement was protracted, often agonizing and, at first glance, baffling.

In 1980, Geraldine Ferraro co-founded the National Organization of Italian American Women, which sought to support the educational and professional goals of its members and put forward positive role models in order to fight ethnic stereotyping, and was still a distinguished member of its board at the time of her death.

Geraldine Ferraro was connected with many other political and non-profit organizations.

Geraldine Ferraro was a board member of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Geraldine Ferraro became president of the newly established International Institute for Women's Political Leadership in 1989.

Geraldine Ferraro had felt unusually tired at the end of her second senate campaign.

Geraldine Ferraro did not publicly disclose the illness until, when she went to Washington to successfully press in Congressional hearings for passage of the Hematological Cancer Research Investment and Education Act.

Geraldine Ferraro became a frequent speaker on the disease, and an avid supporter and honorary board member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

Geraldine Ferraro's advocacy helped make the new treatments approved and available for others as well.

For much of the last decade of her life, Geraldine Ferraro was not in remission, but the disease was managed by continually adjusting her treatments.

Geraldine Ferraro joined Fox News Channel as a regular political commentator in.

In, Geraldine Ferraro was made executive vice president and managing director of the public affairs practice of the Global Consulting Group, an international investor relations and corporate communications component of Huntsworth.

Geraldine Ferraro continued there as a senior advisor working about two days a month.

Geraldine Ferraro republished Ferraro: My Story in 2004, with a postscript summarizing her life in the twenty years since the campaign.

Geraldine Ferraro was a member of the board of directors of Goodrich Petroleum beginning in.

Geraldine Ferraro was a board member for New York Bancorp in the 1990s.

Geraldine Ferraro became a principal in the government relations practice of the Blank Rome law firm in, working both in New York and Washington about two days a week in their lobbying and communications activities.

In December 2006, Geraldine Ferraro announced her support for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Geraldine Ferraro assisted with fundraising by assuming an honorary post on the finance committee for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

Geraldine Ferraro happens to be very lucky to be who he is.

Clinton publicly expressed disagreement with Geraldine Ferraro's remarks, while Geraldine Ferraro vehemently denied she was a racist.

Geraldine Ferraro continued to engage the issue and criticize the Obama campaign via her position as a Fox News Channel contributor.

Geraldine Ferraro criticized the media's scrutiny of Palin's background and family as gender-based and saw parallels with how she was treated by the media during her own run; a University of Alabama study found that media framing of Geraldine Ferraro and Palin was similar and often revolved around their nominations being political gambles.

Geraldine Ferraro was able to make a joint appearance with Palin on Fox News Channel's coverage of the November 2010 midterm elections.

Unable to return to her New York home, Geraldine Ferraro died at Massachusetts General on, 2011.

Geraldine Ferraro was a pioneer in our country for justice for women and a more open society.

Geraldine Ferraro broke a lot of molds and it's a better country for what she did.

Geraldine Ferraro is buried in St John Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, within her old congressional district.

Geraldine Ferraro was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.

Geraldine Ferraro received honorary degrees during the 1980s and early 1990s, from Marymount Manhattan College, New York University Law School, Hunter College, Plattsburgh College, College of Boca Raton, Virginia State University, Muhlenberg College, Briarcliffe College for Business, and Potsdam College.

Geraldine Ferraro subsequently received an honorary degree from Case Western Reserve University.

In 2007, Geraldine Ferraro received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Sons of Italy Foundation.

In 2008, Ferraro was the initial recipient of the annual Trailblazer Award from the National Conference of Women's Bar Associations, and received the Edith I Spivack Award from the New York County Lawyers' Association.