[11] In that position she met Clyde Smith, a prominent local politician, who arranged a job for her as a part-time assistant to the tax assessor.

[15] She was a business executive for the Maine Telephone and Telegraph Company (1918–1919) before joining the staff of the Independent Reporter, a Skowhegan weekly newspaper (owned by Clyde Smith) for whom she was circulation manager from 1919 to 1928.

[9] After Clyde was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine's 2nd congressional district in 1936, Smith accompanied her husband to Washington, D.C., to serve as his secretary.

[9] In the spring of 1940, Clyde Smith fell seriously ill after suffering a heart attack, and asked his wife to run for his House seat in the general election the following September.

After being appointed to the House Naval Affairs Committee in 1943, she was assigned to the investigation of destroyer production, and made a 25,000-mile (40,234-km) tour of bases in the South Pacific during the winter of 1944.

[19] Although Congresswoman Smith was a strong supporter of women in the armed services, she did not write the legislation that created the special female military units during World War II.

[9] Smith became a member of the House Armed Services Committee in 1946, also serving as chair of its Subcommittee on Hospitalization and Medicine.

[9] As a member of the House, Smith began wearing a single red rose that became a daily fixture of her attire throughout her career in public office.

[11] She waged a long campaign to have the rose declared the official flower of the United States, which Congress eventually approved in 1987.

[5] In August 1947, after three-term incumbent Wallace H. White Jr. decided to retire, Smith announced her candidacy for his seat in the U.S.

"[13] When the wife of one of her opponents questioned whether a woman would be a good Senator, Smith replied, "Women administer the home.

[2] After a year in office, she gained national attention when she became the first member of Congress to condemn the anti-Communist witch hunt led by her fellow Republican Senator, Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin.

"[31] On June 1, 1950, Smith delivered a fifteen-minute speech on the Senate floor, known as the "Declaration of Conscience," in which she refused to name McCarthy directly but denounced "the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle.

"[14] Six other moderate Republican Senators signed on to her Declaration: Wayne Morse from Oregon, George Aiken from Vermont, Edward Thye from Minnesota, Irving Ives from New York, Charles Tobey from New Hampshire, and Robert C. Hendrickson from New Jersey.

"[14] He removed her as a member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, giving her seat to Senator Richard Nixon from California.

[9] When asked by a reporter what she would do if she woke up one morning and found herself in the White House, she replied: "I'd go straight to Mrs. Truman and apologize.

"[14] At that year's Republican National Convention, a group of women delegates (led by former congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce) had sought to nominate Smith.

[38] On December 3, 1957, Smith became the first woman in Congress to break the sound barrier, which she did as a passenger in an F-100 Super Sabre piloted by Air Force Major Clyde Good.

[39] Exhibiting the same independent nature in the Senate as she had in the House, Smith opposed President Eisenhower's nomination of Lewis Strauss as Secretary of Commerce in 1959.

"[13] Gladys Shelley wrote her a presidential nomination campaign song, "Leave It to the Girls", which was sung by Hildegarde.

[41] During the administration of President John F. Kennedy, Smith argued that the United States should use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union.

[16] This led Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to call Smith "the devil in disguise of a woman" whose position exceeded "all records of savagery.

[14] A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she supported the Vietnam War but opposed the deployment of the Sentinel anti-ballistic missile.

[43] She supported increased educational funding, civil rights, and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, being one of thirteen Republican senators to vote in favor of both health programs.

[56] On June 9, 1969, Smith voted in favor of President Nixon's nomination of Warren E. Burger as Chief Justice of the United States.

Her Republican primary challenger, attorney Robert A. G. Monks, taunted her for being out of touch; she did not have a state office operating in Maine.

[2] Following her departure from the Senate in January 1973, Smith taught at several colleges and universities as a visiting professor for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (1973–1976).

[66] Patricia Neal dramatized Senator Smith's Declaration of Conscience speech in the 1978 television movie Tail Gunner Joe.

On June 13, 2007, the United States Postal Service issued a 58¢ postage stamp in its Distinguished Americans series to honor her.

In 2010, the United States political action committee Maggie's List was founded, named after Smith; it works to "raise awareness and funds to increase the number of conservative women elected to federal public office.