Born on August 26, 1935, in Newburgh, New York, Geraldine Ferraro was the daughter of Italian immigrants. Her father died when she was eight years old, leaving the family with little money. Her mother worked crocheting beads on dresses to support her two children. Geraldine attended Marymount College in Manhattan on a scholarship; she majored in English, taking a B.A. in 1956. She taught English in public schools in Queens while attending the Fordham University Law School at night. She earned her J.D. degree in 1960, passed the New York bar exam that summer; she married John Zaccaro a week later.
During the next 14 years, although she became involved in local politics, Ferraro devoted her attention to raising her three children. When her youngest child entered school in 1974, she accepted a position as an assistant district attorney in the Investigations Bureau in Queens; in 1975, she transferred to the Special Victims Bureau, which she helped to create to handle cases of domestic violence and rape. In 1978, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York╒s ninth congressional district, running as a Democrate on a platform supporting law and order, the elderly, and neighborhood preservation. Reelected in 1980 and 1982, she represented a predominantly blue-collar, Catholic constituency while advancing a liberal and feminist political agenda.
In 1980 she was elected secretary of the Democratic caucus, and she took a seat in the House Steering and Policy Committee. In 1984 she was appointed chair of the 1984 Democratic platform committee, the first woman to hold the post. That same year, Democratic party presidential candidate, Walter Mondale, selected Ferraro to be his running mate, making her the first woman on a major party╒s national ticket. The presidential bid was unsuccessful, however, and Mondale lost to Ronald Reagan.
Since 1984, Ferraro has written Ferraro: My Story, 1985, an autobiography; she has been active campaigning and lecturing on behalf of female political candidates; she held a fellowship at the Harvard Institute of Politics, 1988; and she ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1992.
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