The First U.S.
Woman Diplomat
Clare Boothe Luce
 The
playwright, journalist, and politician Clare Boothe Luce
(born New York City, April 10, 1903;
died October 9, 1987), started her career in
publishing in 1930, working first on Vogue and
then as a top editor (1931-34) of Vanity Fair;
her sketches for the latter magazine appeared in Stuffed
Shirts (1933). Following her marriage, in 1935 to
publishing magnate Henry R. Luce, she wrote three
successful Broadway plays: The Women (1936;
film, 1939), a satire; Kiss the Boys Goodbye
(1938; film, 1941), a comedy; and Margin for
Error (1940; film, 1943), an anti-Fascist
melodrama. A tour of Western Europe in 1940 led to
a perceptive study, Europe in the Spring (1940),
and other wartime journalistic assignments (1940-42) for Life.
Entering politics as a critic of the Roosevelt
administration, Luce served two terms (1943-47) as
Republican congresswoman from Connecticut. Her
appointment by President Eisenhower as U.S. Ambassador to Italy (1953-57) made her the first American
woman ever to hold a major diplomatic post. With
Slam the Door Softly (1970), Luce returned to her
earlier interest in feminism. |
Eleanor M. Gates, Multimedia
Encyclopedia, The Software Toolworks Inc., 1992.
Bibliography: Shadegg, Stephen C., Clare Boothe Luce: A
Biography (1970).
