Lowry, Joan A. Pat Schroeder: a Woman of the House.

• Author: Prewitt, Jeffrey L.
• Position: Book Review

Lowry, Joan A. Pat Schroeder: A Woman of the House. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2003. vii + 216 pp. Cloth, $24.95.

Pat Schroeder: A Woman of the House is a biography of a different style of woman who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997. While husbands were the traditional means for women to win election to Congress, Schroeder used her charm, razor wit, and feminist credentials to win membership to that most exclusive male club. As a member of Congress, Schroeder sought to implement solutions to problems of gender discrimination inside and outside of government and to improve the welfare system by redirecting funding from military programs.

Lowry uses primary and secondary sources to complete her portrait of Schroeder. Primary sources consulted include interviews with Schroeder as well as references to her autobiography, 24 Years of House Work ... and the Place Is Still a Mess (1998), newspaper interviews, and the recollections of the congresswoman's staff. Lowry also taps a wealth of secondary materials on both Schroeder and women in Congress by accessing the biographies of other politicians as well as newspaper and magazine articles.

The strengths of the biography are multifold. Lowry accomplishes the task of linking Schroeder's ideology and independence to the populist roots of her family in explaining her liberal-maverick inclinations. In addition, Lowry coherently sets forth the factors which led to Schroeder's decision to run in the 1972 campaign, including her family background, her legal training at Harvard, and her consequential job discrimination, as well as the poor quality of medical care she received in 1968. Clearly illustrated were the consequences of being regarded as a maverick in Congress particularly in an era when men were the political leaders, and even freshmen men were ostracized for being outspoken, as exemplified by Schroeder's demand to file a minority report on Pentagon funding. Indeed, Schroeder's most valuable assets were her feminist views and her razor wit. The latter was especially important in empowering Schroeder to gain media access as seen by her labeling of issues like cutting public funding for NPR as "pulling the feathers out of Big Bird," referring to the rich and privileged as "the lucky sperm club," or labeling conservative Republican congresswomen as "femi-Newties."

Still, Lowry's work suffers from three major deficiencies. First and foremost is the...