Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed.  If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes."  They will say, "Women don't have what it takes." 

Clare Boothe Luce

She was born March 10,1903 in New York City. Clare grew up to become an American playwright, the U.S. Representative from Connecticut, and diplomat. She was the first American woman appointed to a major ambassadorial post abroad when she became the ambassador to Italy in 1953. . Clare received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983. She died from a brain tumor in Washington, DC on October 9, 1987 at the age of 84 years, leaving most of her estate to the Henry Luce Foundation which established the Clare Booth Luce Program to encourage women to enter into the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering...a field where women continue to be underrepresented. It became the largest private source of funding for women in those fields.