Barbara Mikulski

Maryland pioneer who became the longest-serving woman in congressional history.

Overview

A social worker whose activist roots included the defense of Baltimore's Fells Point, Mikulski won a House seat in 1976, and in 1986 became the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right, not succeeding a husband. She served until 2017, retiring as the longest-serving woman in Congress at 40 years. As the first woman on Appropriations and its first woman chair, she championed federal pay equity, women's health research, the Violence Against Women Act funding, and the Hubble and Goddard investments of her state, and founded the Senate women's dinner tradition that normalized cross-party collaboration.