Elizabeth Holtzman began her political career in 1967 when she was recruited to work for New York City mayor John Lindsay, becoming the first female assistant to a New York City mayor. In 1970, Holtzman ran a successful campaign to be the Democratic State Committeewoman from the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. In 1972, Holtzman ran a grassroots campaign against long-time Brooklyn Democratic Congressman Emmanuel Celler and was elected to the United States House of Representatives from New York's 16th Congressional District, becoming the youngest woman to be elected to the House of Representatives. She served in the House of Representatives from January 1973 to December 1980. In her role as Representative, she tackled a variety of local and national issues. Holtzman was also one of the founding members of the Congresswomen's Caucus (currently known as Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues). The Elizabeth Holtzman papers cover primarily Holtzman's election to and membership in the United States House of Representatives and her campaign for election to the United States Senate in 1980. See also the Additional Papers of Elizabeth Holtzman.

A lawyer in California and Oregon, Lee was an Oregon state representative,(1929-1931), state senator,(1932-1943), commissioner of public utilities for the city of Portland, OR, (1943-1948), and mayor of Portland, (1949-1952). In January 1953 she was made a consultant on women's affairs in Germany for the U.S. Department of State and in August a member of the U.S. Parole Board. From 1956 to 1962 she was a member of the U.S. Subversive Activities Control Board, becoming chair in 1957. The collection contains correspondence, including a letter from President Eisenhower, speeches, photos from childhood and later life, and clippings document Lee's career.

The collection is made up of audiotapes and transcripts of interviews of congresswomen and women in government service, which Lamson conducted for her book Few Are Chosen (1968). Included are interviews with Congresswomen Frances Bolton, Ella Grasso, Martha Griffiths, Margaret Heckler, Patsy Mink, and Senator Margaret Chase Smith, with government service workers Eugenie Anderson, Esther Peterson, and Antonia Uccello, and with Judge Constance Baker Motley. See also Few are Chosen: American Women in Political Life Today.

A member of the Amherst, MA Board of Selectmen, Mannheim was active in community, civic, political, and church affairs. Born in Brooklyn, NY, she graduated from Adelphi College in 1928. Mannheim became the first woman elected to the Amherst Board of Selectmen in 1954. Mannheim was twice re-elected to the Board, and elected chairman in 1960. She also served as the Hampshire County Selectmen's Association's delegate to the executive committee of the Massachusetts Selectmen's Association. Also active in Republican politics statewide, Mannheim ran in the 1956 and 1958 primaries for the Governor's Council and in 1960 for state representative from the 4th Hampshire district. The collection contains correspondence, newsclippings, and other materials related to her political campaigns. Series II and III in particular cover Mannheim's political campaigns and work with the Amherst city government.

Massachusetts government official, Evelyn F. Murphy, graduated from Duke University (BA 1961, PhD 1965) and Columbia University (MA). Murphy served as Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs (1975-1979) and Secretary of Economic Affairs (1983-1985) before being elected Lieutenant Governor in 1987 (until 1991), the first woman in the history of the Commonwealth to hold a constitutional office. Following Governor Michael Dukakis's decision not to run for reelection as governor in 1990, Murphy entered the race but later withdrew to support fellow Democratic Party candidate Francis X. Bellotti. The collection contains papers relating to Evelyn F. Murphy's professional life as Secretary for Environmental Affairs, Secretary of Economic Affairs, and Lieutenant Governor.

The correspondence of Maurine Brown Neuberger, United States Senator from Oregon 1960-1967, Chairman of the Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1966-1968, relates only to the activities of the Council. The Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women was established in November, 1963 as a result of the report American Women of the President's Commission on the Status of Women, to ensure effective and continuing leadership in advancing the status of women, by stimulating action in the private sector, evaluating progress and advising and assisting the Interdepartmental Committee on the Status of Women. Maurine Brown Neuberger's correspondence files cover the period July, 1966-1969 and include additionally the letters of Catherine East, Executive Secretary of Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women, written after the resignation of Neuberger, at the beginning of the Nixon administration.

A pacifist and feminist (University of Montana, B.A., 1902), Rankin was the first congresswoman, representing Montana for the 1917-1919 and 1941-1943 terms; she also was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both world wars. The collection includes campaign materials, speeches, and correspondence with both government officials and constituents. See also the Additional Papers of Jeanette Rankin.

Rogers was elected congresswoman from the Fifth District of Massachusetts in 1925 and re-elected to every successive Congress. Legislation attributed to Rogers includes improvement of the Foreign Service, establishment of the WAC, enactment of the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Korean veterans' benefits bill, establishment of a permanent Nurse Corps for veterans, and other laws providing aid and assistance to permanently disabled American war veterans. The collection contains correspondence Rogers received as Committee chairman and with constituents; speeches she made in the House, over radio, before veterans' groups, and for various events; analyses of her voting record; campaign material, citations, and awards; photos; and clippings.

Sampson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and studied at the New York School of Social Work and the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration before receiving her law degree from John Marshall Law School in 1925. In 1927 she received an LL.M. from Loyola University, and was admitted to the Illinois bar; in 1935 she was admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court. Sampson worked as a lawyer and served as a probation officer and referee in the family court of Cook County, and as assistant corporation counsel of the city of Chicago, before being elected associate judge of the Municipal Court of Chicago in 1962. In 1964 and again in 1970, she was elected associate judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, and in 1971 and 1976, judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, a position she held until her retirement in 1978. The bulk of the collection pertains to Sampson's activities as a judge, especially her election campaigns.

Political scientist, university administrator, and Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna E. Shalala was born in 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Edna Smith and James Abraham Shalala. She graduated from Western College for Women in 1962 and earned a Ph.D from Syracuse University in 1970. Shalala served on the faculties of Baruch College (City University of New York) and Teachers College (Columbia University) before being appointed president of Hunter College (1980-1988). She later served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1988-1993) before being appointed by President Bill Clinton to head the Department of Health and Human Services (1993-2001). From 2001 to 2015 Shalala was president of the University of Miami. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2008, and in 2010 she received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. In 2018 she was elected to Congress from Florida's 27th Congressional district, although the collection does not cover her campaign or time in office.

Lucy Somerville Howorth was a lawyer and a representative in the Mississippi Legislature from 1932 to 1936. Howorth later served in appointed positions on the War Claims commission from 1949 to 1954 and on the Commission on the Status of Women under John F. Kennedy in 1961. The collection includes speeches, oral histories, correspondence, and clippings.

Active in the Republican party on the county, state and national levels, Weis was a New York congresswoman from 1958 to 1962. She also served as vice-chairman of the Monroe County Republican Committee (1937-1952); member of the advisory committee of the National Federation of Women's Republican Clubs (1937-1944); vice-chairman of the New York delegation to the Republican National Conventions in 1944, 1948, 1952, and 1956; and as associate campaign manager of the 1948 Dewey-Warren campaign. The collection contains correspondence, speeches, articles, scrapbooks, photos, clippings, and other material relating to her political career from 1937 to 1962.

The first woman to be elected to the Cambridge, MA City Council (1955-1963), Wise was especially committed to assuring strong neighborhood participation in urban planning. The collection contains campaign material, correspondence, clippings, photographs, and motions, minutes, etc., from her tenure as an elected official.