Elly M. Peterson

Elly M. Peterson (June 5, 1914 – June 9, 2008), was an American politician and women's rights advocate. Peterson held leadership positions in the Michigan Republican Party and the Republican National Committee, and ran for U.S. Senate in Michigan in 1964. Peterson was a co-founder of bipartisan Equal Rights Amendment advocacy group ERAmerica in the 1970s, working closely with Democratic women's rights activist Liz Carpenter.

Peterson left the Republican Party after objecting to the party's 1980 national platform, and was an independent for the rest of her life. Peterson was an overseas Red Cross volunteer in World War II. She was an officer in the American Cancer Society, an active member of the Congregational Church, American Legion Auxiliary, and a lifetime member of the NAACP. Peterson was featured in the Supersisters trading card set of notable American women in 1979, and was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1984.

Early life and education On June 5, 1914, Peterson was born as Ella Maude McMillan in New Berlin, Illinois.

McMillan attended William Woods College in Fulton, Missouri. She found that she "had no real desire to go to college," and was expelled in early 1933 after attending a New Year's Eve party that served alcohol in violation of Prohibition, which had yet to be repealed.

Eventually, Peterson became an Independent.

Political positions She worked to elect Romney as governor and his lieutenant governor, William Milliken, who succeeded him when Romney became joined the cabinet of President Richard Nixon as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1969.

At the Republican National Committee, Peterson was a strong advocate for outreach, empowerment, fence-mending and organization. She continued the practices that had made her effective as chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party. Inquisitive and probing, she was also quick to laugh and often referred to as "mother" by her interns, such as Christine Todd Whitman. Friendly and un-dogmatic, while in Washington she shared a house with the prominent Democrat Liz Carpenter, who'd been press secretary for Lady Bird Johnson and a speech-writer for Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

An egalitarian by philosophy and example, Peterson was a national co-chairwoman of ERAmerica, a private national campaign organization, during the fight to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. Peterson also strongly supported abortion rights and was a charter member in the National Women's Political Caucus. At this time, in the early 1970s, the conservative wing of the Republican Party was beginning to create friction with the liberal members, Peterson amongst them. She successfully battled to keep Phyllis Schlafly from seizing control of the National Federation of Republican Women, but she was experiencing reduced affinity with the Republican National Convention platform and by 1983 endorsed James Blanchard, the Democrat running for governor of Michigan, rather than the conservative Republican.

Awards 1984 Michigan Women's Hall of Fame