Education
Sullivan attended Washington University in Saint Louis and was a teacher and director at Saint Louis Comptometer school.
Sullivan attended Washington University in Saint Louis and was a teacher and director at Saint Louis Comptometer school.
She was a Democrat and the first woman in Congress from Missouri. Following her husband"s death in 1951, she served as an aide to Congressman Leonard Irving until she left to run for Congress herself in 1952. She was re-elected eleven times.
In Congress, she served for many years as Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus.
Sullivan helped create the food stamp program, which was opposed by Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson and became law in the 1960s during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. She did not seek re-election in 1976, and was succeeded by Dick Gephardt.
In 1979, the Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed. One of the cards featured Sullivan"s name and picture.
The former Wharf Street in front of the Gateway Architecture in Downtown Saint Louis was renamed Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard in her honor.
"A woman with a woman"s viewpoint is of more value when she forgets she"s a woman and begins to act like a manitoba".
Quotations: "A woman with a woman"s viewpoint is of more value when she forgets she"s a woman and begins to act like a manitoba".
Sullivan was one of very few members of Congress, and the only woman member of Congress, to vote against the Equal Rights Amendment for women in the early 1970s.