Martha Thomas Fitzgerald

Martha Elizabeth Thomas "Mattie" Fitzgerald (August 5, 1894 – January 23, 1981) was an educator and politician from South Carolina. She was the first woman elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in a general election.

Fitzgerald, the daughter of James Henry Thomas and Ina Medora Thackston, was a native of Cherokee County and a graduate of Winthrop College, from which she received her degree in 1916; she also held an MA degree from the University of South Carolina and another MA from Columbia University, and performed further graduate work at the University of Chicago. She worked for some time as a schoolteacher, and served in a number of positions with the South Carolina Department of Education, including as a school community organizer, rural school supervisor, and director of elementary education. In 1941 she married Columbia businessman James Madison Harris Fitzgerald. She was an active member of many organizations, including the Business and Professional Women's Club, the League of Women Voters, Delta Kappa Gamma, United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Daughters of American Colonists, South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation, the Altrusa Club, and the Salvation Army. For the Daughters of the American Colonists she served as editor of the Colonial Courier magazine. She also served as Executive Secretary of the South Carolina Governor's Commission on the Status of Women, and was Recording Secretary of the National Executive Board of the National Order of Women Legislators.

Fitzgerald was elected to the House in 1950, and served eleven terms as a Democrat, representing Richland County. She began her tenure as the only woman in the entire House of Representatives. Among causes for which she advocated during her time in office was the service of women as jury members, but the bill which she presented to allow this continually died in committee, and was not passed until she left office. She also supported higher pay for public school teachers. She was named Woman of the Year by The Progressive Farmer in 1960.

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