Lindy Boggs

Who was Lindy Boggs?

Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs, usually known as Lindy Boggs, was a United States political figure who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and later as United States Ambassador to the Holy See. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Louisiana. She was also a permanent chairwoman of the 1976 Democratic National Convention, which met in New York City to nominate the Carter-Mondale ticket. She was the first female to preside over a major party convention.

Boggs was the widow of former Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives Hale Boggs, and the mother of four children: Cokie Roberts; Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr.; the late Barbara Boggs Sigmund, a mayor of Princeton, New Jersey and an unsuccessful candidate in the 1982 New Jersey Democratic senatorial primary election; and William Robertson Boggs, who died as an infant on December 28, 1946.