Millicent Fenwick blossomed during her lifetime as a woman, from working to pay off debts to caring for her children to becoming a well-known Representative in Congress. She was born in New York City on February 25, 1910. At 5 years old, Millicent lost her mother during World War I. Her parents had been aboard the ill-fated Lusitania when it was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland. While her father, Ogden, survived the sinking of the ship, her mother did not. The event left Ogden understandably traumatized and he refused to speak of it upon his return home. Milicent later recalled during an interview with the Washington Post: “Daddy was never the same.”

After the loss of his wife, Ogden remarried to a woman named Marguerite McClure Howard, who Millicent never saw eye to eye with. Millicent attended the Foxcroft School in Virginia until President Calvin Coolidge appointed her father to serve as Ambassador of Spain in 1925. Though her schooling ended when she joined her family in Madrid, Millicent continued learning and left Spain fluent in Spanish, Italian, and French. She returned to the United States when she was 19 years old, taking classes at Columbia and studying philosophy alongside Bertrand Russell at the New School for Social Research. Although she never earned a degree for any of her coursework, Millicent was well educated.

In 1931, at 21 years old, Millicent met Hugo McLeod Fenwick at a lawn party in New Jersey. Hugo was five years her senior and married when they met, however Millicent was determined. Her family, especially her stepmother Marguerite, were furious about the scandalous romance. Millicent spoke about her romance with Hugo saying, “There was a terrible row, it was rather seamy. The family, of course, was furious.” Millicent and Hugo married in 1932 after he secured a divorce from his first wife, Dorothy Ledyard. The ceremony was overshadowed however when Milicent’s stepmother unplugged the lights to ensure that the ceremony could not be captured properly.

Millicent and Hugo’s marriage did not last long. Less than a decade later they were separated and Hugo had moved to Europe. They were officially divorced in 1945. From the marriage, Millicent had two children, Mary and Hugo and occasionally modeled for Harper’s Bazaar during the marriage. Hugo lost his fortunes in the 1929 stock market crash and left the debt to Millicent when he left for Europe. He later went on to remarry while Millicent did not, instead deciding to focus on her children and paying off the debts her ex-husband had left her.

Since Millicent never received a high school diploma and was left a single mother, she was on the hunt for work to support herself and her two children. She was hired at Vogue in 1938 as a caption editor. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Millicent became the war editor for Vogue where she wrote features focusing on the war at home and abroad. This title during her time at Vogue spring boarded her career into politics, as Milicent later recalled:

“Hilter started me into politics; when I became aware of what he was doing to people, I fired up.”

However, her financial struggles at home caring for her children and paying off Hugo’s debts still loomed over her head even with this new title at Vogue. In 1948, she published the Vogue Book of Etiquette, which sold over 1 million copies. The book was popular because it portrayed etiquette as a means to make others feel comfortable instead of with a high brow Victorian-era sense of snobbishness. In 1952, Millicent retired from Vogue after receiving belated inheritance from her mother and the growth of her family’s real estate interest. However, at 42 her career was far from over.

After Vogue, Millicent focused her career on local politics, running for borough council in Bernardsville, New Jersey in 1958. She was re-elected twice for the role and left office temporarily in 1964. In 1969, she returned to the public stage and ran for the New Jersey General Assembly. During her campaign she focused on securing better working conditions for migrant workers, including getting portable toilets which won her the nickname “Outhouse Millie.” In 1972, she resigned from the General Assembly to serve as the state’s director of consumer affairs where she fought against misleading advertisements in the auto industry. In 1974, her career went far beyond just the state of New Jersey and beyond likely what she ever imagined she could do as a woman without a high school diploma. Millicent won a seat as a Republican in the 5th district of New Jersey for the 94th Congress. At 64 years old, the news touted Millicent as a “geriatric triumph,” something people today would almost consider young for Congress.

Milicent Fenwick smoking her famous pipe

Millicent Fenwick served 4 terms in Congress, from 1975-1983 where she gained larger winning margins each year. She voted against her Republican colleagues 48% of the time. She fought for civil rights, peace in Vietnam, gun control, and prison reforms amongst a list of other things, but voted in favor of Ronald Reagan’s budget cuts. When asked about her political ideology she said: “It is because I don’t trust government that I am a Republican.”

Milicent was also known for her sharp wit during her time in politics. Rep. Wayne Hays of Ohio even once threatened to keep Milicent’s staff from being paid if “that woman doesn’t sit down and keep quiet.” But Milicent was never one to keep quiet. She followed her own rules. For example, when her doctor told her to stop smoking cigarettes, she began smoking a pipe instead.

Milicent’s clever and unorthodox nature was clearly visible through her avid support of women’s rights during her political career. During a debate over the Equal Rights Amendment, a male colleague addressed Milicent on the House floor, stating that “I just don't like this amendment. I've always thought of women as kissable, cuddly and smelling good.” Milicent’s response was to say:

“That’s the way I feel about men, too. I only hope for your sake that you haven’t been disappointed as often as I have.”

“A Tribute in Bronze" — statue of Milicent Fenwick in Bernardsville, New Jersey

In 1982, she ran for Senate in New Jersey but was narrowly defeated by Democrat, Frank R. Lautenberg. Ronald Reagan appointed her as the first American envoy to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome. She finished her career in that position, retiring in 1987. She passed away due to heart failure on September 16, 1992 in her family home in Bernardsville.

Though the world might not know the name Millicent Fenwick, her spirit lives on, especially in her home town of Bernardsville. Some claim she was the model for Garry Trudeau’s Lacey Davenport character in his comic Doonesbury. A statue of her, sculpted by Dana Toomey stands in her home town right by the train station. Despite having faced difficulties in her family, a heap of debt left to her by her ex-husband, and the challenges of that came from not having an educational degree, Millicent Fenwick made quite the name for herself. By all means, she was an unconventional, daring woman: broadcaster Walter Cronkite even called her “the conscience of Congress.” But perhaps her grandson Sam Reckford described her best: “Grandma was a character.”

From Fashion Editor to Famous Representative: The Life of Millicent Fenwick

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