Phyllis Stewart Schlafly (; born Phyllis McAlpin Stewart; August 15, 1924 – September 5, 2016) was an American attorney and activist who was nationally prominent in conservatism. She opposed feminism, gay rights, and abortion, and campaigned against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

More than three million copies of her self-published book A Choice Not an Echo (1964), a polemic in support of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater and condemning more liberal East Coast Republicans personified by Nelson Rockefeller, were sold or distributed for free. Schlafly co-authored books on national defense, and was critical of arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons. 2000. Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort. New York: Guilford Press, p. 202.

In 1972, Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum, a conservative political interest group, and remained its chair and CEO until her death in 2016, while staying active in conservative causes.

Early life Born Phyllis McAlpin Stewart, Schlafly was raised in St. Louis. Schlafly's great-grandfather Stewart, a Presbyterian, emigrated from Scotland to New York in 1851 and moved westward through Canada before settling in Michigan.Men of West Virginia. Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago: 1903, pp. 157–158. Her grandfather, Andrew F. Stewart, was a master mechanic with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. Schlafly's father, John Bruce Stewart, was a machinist and salesman of industrial equipment, principally for Westinghouse. He was granted a patent in 1944 for a rotary engine.Carol Felsenthal, The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority: The Biography of Phyllis Schlafly. (Doubleday, 1981).

During the Great Depression, Schlafly's father faced long-term unemployment, beginning in 1932.Donald Critchlow. Founding Mother-Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade, p. 422. Before her marriage, her mother, Odile Stewart (née Dodge), worked as a teacher at a private girls' school in St. Louis. During the Depression, she went back to work as a librarian and teacher to support her family. Mrs. Stewart was able to keep the family afloat and maintain Phyllis in a Catholic girls' school.Ehrenreich, pp. 152–153. Phyllis's sole sibling was her younger sister, Odile.

Education Schlafly attended Maryville College, but after one year, transferred to Washington University in St. Louis.Critchlow 2005, pp. 22-23. In 1944, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1945, after attending Harvard,Conservative just co-authored a new book. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 6, 2016, p. A13. Accessed September 17, 2023 she received a Master of Arts degree in government from Radcliffe.Radcliffe timeline

In Strike From Space (1965), Schlafly wrote that during World War II, she worked as "a ballistics gunner and technician at the largest ammunition plant in the world". She earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Washington University School of Law in 1978.

Activism and political efforts

In 1946, Schlafly became a researcher for the American Enterprise Institute and worked in the successful United States House of Representatives campaign of Republican Claude I. Bakewell.Critchlow 2005, pp. 25–29.

In 1952, Schlafly ran for Congress as a Republican in the majority Democratic 24th congressional district of Illinois. She won the Republican primary election over John T. R. Godlewski by 18,793 (61.14%) to 11,943 (38.86%).Official Vote of the State of Illinois -- Cast at the General Election, November 4, 1952, Judicial Election, 1951 Primary Election General Primary, April 8, 1952, Compiled By Charles F. Carpentier Secretary of State (1952) However, she lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Charles Melvin Price, winning 63,778 votes (35.20%) to Price's 117,408 votes (64.80%).Critchlow 2005, pp. 47–59. Schlafly's campaign was low-budget and promoted heavily through the local print media, and the major munitions manufacturers John M. Olin and Spencer Truman Olin, and the Texas oil billionaire H. L. Hunt.Critchlow 2005, p. 55. She was the keynote speaker at the June 1952 Illinois state convention of the Republican Party. In her speech, she accused the Truman administration of "demoralizing our children by bad examples, drafting our men, and confiscating our family income." In early July 1952, she attended her first Republican National Convention. She would attend each subsequent Republican National Convention until her death. As part of the Illinois delegation of the 1952 convention, Schlafly endorsed U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft to be the party's nominee in the presidential election.Critchlow 2005, p. 46.

She played a major role with her husband in 1957 in writing the "American Bar Association's Report on Communist Tactics, Strategy, and Objectives." Donald T. Critchlow says it "became not only one of the most widely read documents ever produced by the ABA, it was probably the single most widely read publication of the grassroots anticommunist movement."Critchlow 2005, online

Schlafly was elected to serve as an alternate delegate to the 1960 Republican National Convention from Illinois' 24th congressional district. At the convention, Schlafly helped lead a revolt of "moral conservatives" who opposed Richard Nixon's stance "against segregation and discrimination."Warner, Judith. She Changed America , The New York Times, January 29, 2006. Schlafly was the Republican nominee for Illinois's 24th congressional district again in 1960. She again lost the general election to Price, this time by 144,560 votes (72.22%) to 55,620 (27.79%).Official Vote of the State of Illinois Cast at the General Election November 8, 1952, Judicial Election 1959–1960 Primary Election General Primary April 12, 1960, Compiled by Charles F. Carpentier Secretary of State

She came to national attention when millions of copies of her self-published book A Choice Not an Echo were distributed in support of Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, especially in California's hotly fought winner-take-all-delegates GOP primary. In it, Schlafly denounced the Rockefeller Republicans in the Northeast, accusing them of corruption and globalism. Critics called the book a conspiracy theory about "secret kingmakers" controlling the Republican Party.Berlet and Lyons. 2000. Right–Wing Populism in America, pp. 180, 202. Schlafly had previously been a member of the John Birch Society; founder Robert Welch Jr. referred to her as a "very loyal" member. She later quit and denied she had been a member because she feared her association with the organization would damage her book's reputation. By mutual agreement her books were not mentioned in the society's magazine, American Opinion, and the distribution of her books by the society was handled so as to mask their involvement. The society was able to dispense 300,000 copies of A Choice Not an Echo in California prior to the June 2, 1964, GOP primary. Gardiner Johnson, Republican National Committee for California, stated that the distribution of her book in California was a major factor in Goldwater's winning the nomination.

In 1967, Schlafly lost a bid for the presidency of the National Federation of Republican Women against the more moderate candidate Gladys O'Donnell of California. Outgoing NFRW president and future United States Treasurer Dorothy Elston of Delaware worked against Schlafly in the campaign.Critchlow 2005, pp. 138-59.

In 1970, she ran unsuccessfully for Illinois's 23rd congressional district, losing to Democratic incumbent George E. Shipley by 91,158 votes (53.97%) to 77,762 (46.04%). She never sought public office again.

American feminists made their greatest bid for national attention at the 1977 National Women's Conference in Houston; however, historian Marjorie J. Spruill argues that the anti-feminists led by Schlafly organized a highly successful counter-conference, the Pro-Life, Pro-Family Rally, to protest the National Women's Conference and make it clear that feminists did not speak for them. At their rally at the Astro Arena they had an overflow of over 15,000 people, and announced the beginning of a pro-family movement to oppose politicians who had been supporting feminism and liberalism, and to promote "family values" in American politics, and so moved the Republican Party to the right and defeated the ratification of the ERA.Marjorie J. Spruill.Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics. (2017) online review .

Opposition to Equal Rights Amendment

Schlafly became an outspoken opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) during the 1970s as the organizer of the "STOP ERA" campaign. STOP was a backronym for "Stop Taking Our Privileges". She argued that the ERA would take away gender-specific privileges enjoyed by women, including "dependent wife" benefits under Social Security, separate restrooms for males and females, and exemption from Selective Service (the military draft). She was opposed by groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the ERAmerica coalition. The Homemakers' Equal Rights Association was formed to counter Schlafly's campaign.

In 1972, when Schlafly began her campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment, the ERA had already been ratified by 28 of the required 38 states. Seven more states ratified the amendment after Schlafly began organizing opposition, but another five states rescinded their ratifications. The last state to ratify the ERA was Indiana, where State Senator Wayne Townsend cast the tie-breaking vote in January 1977. (Nevada, Illinois and Virginia ratified the ERA between 2017 and 2020, many years after the deadline to do so.)

The Equal Rights Amendment was narrowly defeated, having only achieved ratification in a total 35 states. Political scientist Jane J. Mansbridge concluded in her history of the ERA:

Joan Williams argues, "ERA was defeated when Schlafly turned it into a war among women over gender roles." Historian Judith Glazer-Raymo argues:

Critics of Schlafly pointed out that she was not a typical housewife, as she was heavily involved in political causes.

Broadcast media In broadcast media, Schlafly provided commentaries on Chicago news radio station WBBM from 1973–75, CBS Morning News from 1974-75, and CNN from 1980-83. In 1983, she began creating syndicated daily 3-minute commentaries for radio. In 1989, she began hosting a weekly radio talk show, Eagle Forum Live.

Viewpoints

Social viewpoints

Women's issues In November 1977, she was an opposition speaker at the 1977 National Women's Conference with Lottie Beth Hobbs, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, Nellie Gray, and Bob Dornan."1977 National Women's Conference: A Question of Choices," 1977-11-21, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting Schlafly told Time magazine in 1978, "I have cancelled speeches whenever my husband thought that I had been away from home too much."

In an interview on March 30, 2006, she attributed improvement in women's lives during the last decades of the 20th century to labor-saving devices such as the indoor clothes dryer and disposable diapers.

She called Roe v. Wade "the worst decision in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court" and said that it "is responsible for the killing of millions of unborn babies".

Equal Rights Amendment