Elsie Hillman

Elsie Hillman
Member of the Republican National Committee from Pennsylvania
In office 1975 – June 8, 1996
Preceded by	Sally Stauffer
Succeeded by	Anne Anstine
Personal details
Born	Elsie Hilliard (1925-12-09)December 9, 1925 Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania, US
Died	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US
Resting place	Homewood Cemetery
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Henry Hillman
Children	Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Audrey Hillman Fisher William Talbott Hillman Henry L. Hillman, Jr.
Alma mater	The Ellis School Ethel Walker School Westminster Choir College
Known for	philanthropy
Religion	Episcopalian

Elsie Hilliard Hillman (December 9, 1925 – August 4, 2015) was an American civic and political leader, philanthropist and activist with a lifelong interest in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A Republican National Committeewoman for over 20 years, she was instrumental in electing moderate Republicans, including President George H. W. Bush, Senator John Heinz, and Pennsylvania Governors Dick Thornburgh and Tom Ridge. She worked with Democrats and Republicans alike on issues near to her heart: civil rights, women’s rights, and jobs for people in the Pittsburgh region. Known for her down-to-earth nature and sense of humor, Pittsburghers regularly encountered "Elsie" in her signature headband, as she was active as a philanthropist and civic leader in the city and region.

Early life

Hillman was born in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, the daughter of Thomas Jones Hilliard and Marianna Talbott Hilliard. She was raised in the Fox Chapel and Hampton Township areas of Allegheny County before her family moved into the City of Pittsburgh. Hillman and her brothers and sister were taught, through their mother’s example, that they had a responsibility to serve others. Marianna Talbott Hilliard’s own work included leading local volunteers in spotting aircraft over Pittsburgh during World War II, serving on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, and heading the citywide effort to raise money to buy mobile kitchens and hospital equipment for war-bombed England. Hillman began her own volunteering by cleaning instruments for surgeries at Eye and Ear Hospital in Pittsburgh, selling War Bonds, and knitting socks for soldiers. During her elementary and upper school years, Hillman attended the Ellis School in Pittsburgh and the Ethel Walker School in Connecticut. After she graduated from high school, Hillman went to Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. to study piano and voice. (Her grandmother, Catherine Hauk Talbott, founded the college, which now is part of Rider University.) By then, she had fallen in love with Henry Hillman, a U.S. Navy pilot stationed at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, N.Y. She and Hillman had met years earlier in Pittsburgh. They were wed in 1945.

The Hillmans lived in New York and Texas, returning to the City of Pittsburgh at the end of the war.

Political life

Hillman first ventured into politics as a young woman, campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower because she saw him as a war hero. She had already registered as a Republican—both because of family tradition and the party’s support for women, including the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

After Ike’s successful campaigns, Hillman remained involved in the Republican party during the 1960s as a volunteer at the local level. Her work in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County caused her to see how few African American men or women were involved in her party, so she arranged to meet with the county party chairman to raise the issue. He suggested that she meet Wendell Freeland, an African American lawyer and Tuskegee Airman, to team-up to recruit more volunteers and candidates from the city’s African American community.

Hillman and Freeland did this, going on to organize neighborhoods across the City of Pittsburgh and becoming lifelong friends through political and civic work that spanned decades.

Their work took Hillman into neighborhoods of Pittsburgh and the county she had never been. It was during this period that she developed her connections with African American leaders as well as a sense of outrage about the civil rights being denied to Black Americans. She volunteered for the board of directors of several traditionally African American organizations, including the Hill House Association, and began to speak publicly for civil rights.

Hillman and Freeland were able to reach African American voters in ways that the party had not before Never a Spectator and they organized large-scale events, including a 17,000-person rally for William Scranton when he ran for governor; Scranton was elected in 1962.

Because of Scranton’s moderate views and strong support of Civil Rights legislation, Hillman backed his candidacy during the 1964 Republican presidential primary in San Francisco (after having worked actively for Nelson Rockefeller, who withdrew from the race). She witnessed the poor treatment of African American Republican delegates by some of those who opposed Scranton. Scranton ultimately lost the nomination to Senator Barry Goldwater, who would go on to be defeated in the general election by Lyndon Johnson.

Hillman worked to elect Senator Hugh Scott, who had led the Republican National Committee and would rise to the position of Senate Minority Leader. With Scott’s encouragement, she ran for the position of chair of the Allegheny County Republican Party and was elected to the job in 1967—the first woman elected to head the party of an urban area. It was during her time as party chair that she worked to field winning candidates and develop connections with her counterparts across the state of Pennsylvania, including the members of the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania.

During and after her tenure as party chair, Hillman worked to advance moderate candidates who supported civil rights and women’s rights—urging them to run, helping them to organize their campaigns (often staffing them, as a volunteer), and connecting them with the leaders of organized labor and other influential groups. She and her family made extensive contributions to campaigns as well, eventually establishing a political action committee to support moderate candidates. She was also known as a supporter of abortion rights.

In 1975, the State Committee of Pennsylvania elected Hillman to the Republican National Committee (RNC). She served as a national committeewoman until 1996.

Hillman is credited with helping to elect to office U.S. President George H.W. Bush, U.S. Senator John Heinz, PA Governor Dick Thornburgh, and PA Governor Tom Ridge. She work on George H. W. Bush's 1980 campaign and helped him win the Pennsylvania primary. Ronald Reagan won the party nomination, but Bush was his vice-presidential running mate.

In 2002, she was named to the PoliticsPA list of "Sy Snyder's Power 50." In 2003, she was named to the PoliticsPA "Power 50" list. She was named to the PoliticsPA list of "Pennsylvania's Most Politically Powerful Women." In 2010, Politics Magazine named her one of the most influential Republicans in Pennsylvania, calling her the "grand dame of big tent Republican politics."

Personal life

Hillman died on August 4, 2015, at age 89. Among the numerous political, civic, business, and medical leaders who attended her memorial service were former Pennsylvania governors Tom Corbett, Tom Ridge, and Dick Thornburgh. Burial was at Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh.

Timeline

Year	Selected Civic/Political Activities of Elsie Hillman (from Never A Spectator, pages 112–117)
1952	Volunteers for Dwight D. Eisenhower campaign
1954	Joins board of WQED
1956	Elected Republican committee member by the 14th Ward, City of Pittsburgh
1960	Appointed volunteer chair, Republican Committee of Allegheny County
1962	Organizes outreach to African American voters as a volunteer for William Scranton’s campaign for Pennsylvania governor
1964	Elected GOP chair, 14th Ward (retired in 1974); Elected alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention in San Francisco
1965	Serves on a leadership committee to form the Hill House Association (from the merger of the Anna B. Heldman Community Center and Soho Settlement House); Joins the Allegheny County Anti-Poverty Advisory Council
1966	Plays integral role in Dick Thornburgh for Congress campaign
1967	Elected chair, Republican Committee of Allegheny County; Joins board of Mount Mercy College (now Carlow University)
1968	Elected delegate to the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach
1971	Chairs Labor for Heinz committee during H. John Heinz III’s campaign for Congress; Receives The New Pittsburgh Courier’s Top Hat Award
1973	Elected to the vestry, Calvary Episcopal Church (served until 1977)
1974	Becomes member, Pennsylvania Republican Leadership Committee; Elected vice president of the Hill House Association; Elected vice president of the Pittsburgh Symphony Society;
1975	Elected Pennsylvania committeewoman to the Republican National Committee; Joins Shadyside Hospital Foundation Board of Directors; Receives Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania award
1976	Elected delegate and selected as floor leader (for President Gerald Ford) at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Mo.; Cochairs Ford’s Pennsylvania campaign; Chairs Labor for Heinz during his U.S. Senate campaign
1977	Chairs “kitchen cabinet” for Doris Carson Williams’ run for Pittsburgh City Council
1978	Elected to the Executive Committee of RNC (serves until 1996); Co-chairs the primary campaign for Dick Thornburgh for Pennsylvania governor
1979	Chairs George H.W. Bush presidential campaign in Pennsylvania and serves on his national campaign steering committee
1980	Elected delegate to the Republican National Convention in Detroit
1982	Serves on the state steering committee, Heinz for Senate; Provides support for Tom Ridge’s run for Congress
1983	Chairs “kitchen cabinet” for Barbara Hafer in her run for Allegheny County commissioner
1984	Serves as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Dallas and as Pennsylvania’s Reagan-Bush reelection cochair; Begins serving on RNC’s Executive Council (serves until 1996)
1985	Elected vice chair, University of Pittsburgh’s newly established Cancer Institute
1986	Serves as state chair of Arlen Specter’s U.S. Senate campaign; Volunteers for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force
1987	Serves as general chair, Pennsylvania, George Bush for President Committee
1988	Elected delegate to the Republican National Convention in New Orleans and cochair of Pennsylvania delegation; Supports Hafer in her run for Pennsylvania auditor general; Chairs the Art for AIDS benefit, Persad Center
1989	Elected chair, Pennsylvania Electoral College
1990	Cochairs Barbara Hafer’s campaign for Pennsylvania governor
1992	Elected delegate to the Republican National Convention in Houston; Serves as general chair, Bush-Quayle ’92
1993	Helps to lead support for the passage of the Allegheny Regional Asset District legislation (Act 77 of 1993)
1994	Cochairs statewide steering committee of Ridge for Governor; Helps to form the Interfaith Alliance of Southwestern Pennsylvania
1996	Elected delegate to the Republican National Convention in San Diego and member of the Platform Committee; Retires as the longest-serving Pennsylvania Republican national committeewoman; Elsie Awards established at WQED Multimedia
1997	Cochairs the Regional Renaissance Initiative referendum campaign
1998	Cochairs Tom Ridge’s reelection campaign for governor; Helps to launch the National Republican Leadership Council; Cochairs Allegheny 2000 Home Rule referendum campaign; Cochairs Jim Roddey’s campaign for Allegheny County executive
2000	Elected delegate at large for Republican National Convention in Philadelphia; Joins the National Board of Republican Majority for Choice; Joins the Riverlife Task Force; Helps create the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics at Chatham University
2003	Cochairs Pittsburgh Financial Leadership Committee with U.S.X.'s David Roderick
2004	Cochairs Save Our Summers campaign to raise $1 million to reopen public swimming pools and recreation centers
2005	Helps lead row office reform referendum campaign in Allegheny County
2006	Cochairs William Scranton III’s primary campaign for Pennsylvania governor; Founds Run Baby Run, a bipartisan political action committee supporting women candidates for the state legislature; Establishes and chairs the board of the Elsie H. Hillman Foundation
2008	Helps launch the Neighbor-Aid campaign to meet health and human services needs; Receives the Leading Light Award from the International Women’s Forum; Serves as honorary cochair of Pittsburgh 250
2009	Receives the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh’s inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award
2011	Receives the Forbes Funds’ Shapira Medal for Exemplary Leadership
2012	Receives the University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Public Service (its inaugural award, named for Elsie Hillman)

See also

• Hillman Library – named for the Hillman family

External links

• [1] University of Pittsburgh: "Never a Spectator The Political Life of Elsie Hillman" by Kathy McCauley retrieved March 23, 2013
• Elsie Hillman, philanthropist and one-time GOP powerhouse, dies at 89
• Elsie Hillman