Background
Hart was born in Detroit, Michigan, on October 21, 1921, to businessman Walter O. Briggs and Jane Cameron.
Hart was born in Detroit, Michigan, on October 21, 1921, to businessman Walter O. Briggs and Jane Cameron.
She attended the Academies of the Sacred Heart in Detroit, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and Torresdale, Pennsylvania, and Manhattanville College in New New York
Hart earned her first pilot"s license during World World War II, and later became the first licensed female helicopter pilot in Michigan. In the early 1960s, Hart was chosen to participate in the Lovelace Foundation"s Woman in Space Program, a privately funded project designed to test women pilots for astronaut fitness by subjecting them to the same physical tests developed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration for astronauts. At the age of 40, Hart became one of only 13 women (later dubbed the Mercury 13) to qualify.
In 2007, Hart was inducted into the Michigan Women"s Hall of Fame.
In 1970, at age 49, she received her Bachelor in anthropology from George Washington University in Washington, District of Columbia The couple would go on to have nine children, one of whom died as a toddler.
In 1958 Philip Hart was elected to the United States Senate, where he served until 1976. She was active in her husband"s political campaigns (including piloting him to campaign stops) and served as vice chairman of the Oakland County (Michigan) Democratic Committee. While living in Washington, Hart gained a reputation as a non-conformist.
Foreign example, in 1969 she was arrested in an antiwar demonstration at the Pentagon, and In 1972, she announced her intention to stop paying federal income taxes, stating, "I cannot contribute one more dollar toward the purchase of more bomb and bullets".
Hart was also an avid sailor and has sailed in the Portuguese Huron to Mackinac Boat Race 15 times as part of an all-women crew. After her husband"s death, Hart donated several boxes of scrapbooks, photographs and newspaper clippings of her life as a senator"s wife to the University of Michigan"s Bentley Historical Library.
Hart died on June 5, 2015 in West Hartford, Connecticut from complications resulting from Alzheimer"s disease, aged 93.
She was a founding member of the National Organization for Women, and served as board member and national convention delegate for the Birmingham, Michigan League of Women Voters.