Frances P. Bolton - Life and Career

Life and Career

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Bolton was the granddaughter of Henry B. Payne. Active in public health, nursing education and other social service, education, and philanthropic work, she succeeded her husband, Chester C. Bolton, in office a few months after his death in 1939. Upon election to the remainder of her late husband's term, Bolton refused the customary widow's allowance comprising the remainder of the salary her late husband would have collected had he served out his term. She represented the 22nd District, once the most populous House district in Ohio, mostly consisting of Cleveland's eastern suburbs. Bolton served an additional fourteen terms, serving alongside her son, Oliver P. Bolton for three of those terms. She and Oliver appeared on What's My Line? as the only mother and son serving together. It was reported that when he voted against her, she once stage-whispered, "That's my adopted son."

Serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Bolton called Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in May 1954 after the fall of the French base at Dien Bien Phu, urging him to invite nurse Genevieve de Galard to the United States. When Galard arrived in July, Bolton described her as a "symbol of heroic femininity in the free world". After receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Galard was received at a dinner for three hundred in Congresswoman Bolton's home district of Cleveland while on a tour of the country.

In 1955, she became the first American woman member of Congress to head an international delegation, using her own resources to fund it. As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's subcommittee on Africa, she felt it was her responsibility to visit as much of Africa as possible. Arriving in Senegal on 1 September, she spent the next six weeks crisscrossing the continent by plane, train, boat, and car. Her important stops included Liberia, Ghana (then still known as the Gold Coast), the Belgian Congo, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South Africa, and Ethiopia. She met with leading nationalists such as Kwame Nkrumah, powerful politicians such as Haile Selassie, and leading women such as the Queen Mother of the Tutsis. She also spent a lot of time during her trip visiting schools and talking with young people, and meeting with women from all walks of life in the markets or clinics. As someone with a lifelong interest in education and health care, she prioritized these issues during her African travels.

When she got back to the United States she submitted a very thorough and insightful report to Congress. One of her recommendations was that Congress should create a new State Department Bureau for African Affairs to be overseen by a new assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Bolton helped to see that this did in fact happen, and Congress created the new bureau in 1958. In addition to sharing information about her trip with Congress through her official report, Bolton also made an impressive effort to enlighten the American people about the diversity of the African continent by creating a film about her trip, entitled Africa: Giant With a Future, 1955. This film is an excellent resource for students and instructors wanting a look at several African countries/colonies in the mid-1950s, and has been made available on DvD by the National Archives. In addition to educating Congress and the general public about Africa, Bolton's trip helped to begin the process of opening doors for women to play a major role in US foreign relations.

In addition to influencing US relations with Africa, another of Bolton's most lasting achievements was sponsoring legislation to purchase property across the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. This prevented commercialization of the area and preserved its appearance as it was when Washington lived there. Bolton had a phenomenal relationship with her constituents of Italian-American heritage and was known for mailing government child-care pamphlets to homes where new children were born. The nursing school at Case Western Reserve University is named in her honor for her accomplishments and generosity in the field of public nursing.

After rising to become ranking minority member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Bolton was defeated in a bid for a sixteenth term in 1968 by Charles Vanik. Bolton retired to her family home, Franchester (named for herself and her late husband), in Lyndhurst, Ohio. She was a devotee of yoga. The Bolton Fellowship supports research in parapsychology.

Her papers are held at the Western Reserve Historical Society.