Geraldine Ferraro, a Democrat and the first major female vice presidential candidate, passed away on Saturday, according to multiple reports on a statement released by her family.Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic congresswoman who became the first woman on a major party presidential ticket as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984, died Saturday at the age of 75, NBC News confirmed.Ferraro died at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston of a blood cancer after a 12-year illness, according to a statement from her family cited by various news organizations.
Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times reports that at the age of 75, Ferraro died of complications from blood cancer at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Geraldine Anne Ferraro (August 26, 1935 – March 26, 2011) was an American attorney, a Democratic Party politician and a former member of the United States House of Representatives. She was the first female Vice Presidential candidate representing a major American political party.
Ferraro grew up in New York and became a teacher and lawyer. She joined the Queens County District Attorney's Office in 1974, where she headed the new Special Victims Bureau that dealt with sex crimes, child abuse, and domestic violence.
She was elected to Congress in 1978, where she rose rapidly in the party hierarchy while focusing on legislation to bring equity for women in the areas of wages, pensions, and retirement plans. In 1984, former Vice President and presidential candidate Walter Mondale selected Ferraro to be his running mate in the upcoming election.
In doing so she became the only Italian American to be a major-party national nominee in addition to being the first woman.
She became a New York City schoolteacher, teaching second grade at P.S. 85 in Astoria, Queens, part of the district she would later represent in Congress.
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