THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Mary Dent Crisp

November 5, 1923 – March 24, 2007

“The Republican Party made me a feminist.”

Vice-chair of the Mariposa County Republican Committee from 1968-1970. Vice-chair of Arizona’s Republican State Committee from 1971-1972. Became a Republican National Committeewoman in Arizona, 1972. Secretary of the Republican National Convention, 1976. Co-Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, 1977–1980. As the last official act of her term, she challenged the GOPs abandonment of the Equal Rights Amendment and their anti-abortion platform in her speech to the national convention. Worked for the National Women’s Political Caucus and the National Abortion Rights Action League. A co-founder of the Republican National Coalition for Choice, which fought to develop an abortion rights plank for the platform at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston.