martha griffith, who was a power in her own right, said of julia hanson that she knew how to exercisepower better than any woman who she had seen in any legislature and coming from martha griffith, that's high praise. so here we have a campaign postcard of martha griffins who was one of the influential women members from the 1950s into the 1970s. she represented a michigan district and like some of the earlier women here, like julia butler hanson, she has got a lot of experience before she ever comes to congress. choose a lawyer, she serves as a judge in michigan and she's elected to the house in 1954. she comes in in 1955. and she, too, very quickly moves into positions of influence. she's the first woman after a number of women in congress had campaigns with the speaker to get a seat on the very exclusive ways and means committee, the tax committee. and from that position, she really weighs in on a lot of issues affecting women monetarily, but she's probably best known as the mother of the equal rights amendment. every year, she reintroduced the equal rights amendment which has a hi

the equal rights amendment passed first of all because it was a very powerful congresswoman, martha griffithsigan, who was strongly in favor of that. secondly, because the republican party wasn't opposed to it. there wasn't a political opposition. it was more cultural opposition. when the equal rights amendment was adopted, it had a seven-year time frame for ratification. otherwise, there would be no equal rights amendment. >> this amendment could have wide repercussions, affecting the military draft, a father's responsibility to support his children, sex crimes, and protective labor legislation. >> i think the very term e.r.a. started opening up a look at everything. it was sort of like ripping off the lid and saying, well, are there equal wages? are we getting equal admission into college? every issue started being looked at all kind of under the banner of e.r.a. >> president nixon today signed into law a far-reaching $21 billion education bill which will support educational projects from kindergarten to graduate school. >> title 9 is educational equality. it simply says that any educationa