Moderate Republican politician Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995) was the first woman to be elected to both houses of Congress, serving 8 years in the House of Representatives and 24 years in the Senate. She was also the first elected official to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist witch hunt, the first woman placed in nomination for the U.S presidency by a major party, and one of the first honorees inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Not bad… for a girl.