Pearl Carter Pace - Political Career

Political Career

Originally a schoolteacher and a businesswoman, Pace had a great philosophy of life: "Anybody can do anything he wants if he just wants enough to make the effort." This thinking took her into areas of life largely uncharted for rural southern women. She was the sheriff of Cumberland County from 1937 to 1941. Although other American women had served in this capacity (including a Kentuckian Florence Shoemaker Thompson), Pace was the first Kentucky woman—and perhaps the first in the nation—elected as a sheriff. During her four-year term as sheriff, she came to be known as "Pistol-Packin' Pearl."

Pace's husband, Stanley Dan Pace, had been "drafted" in 1933 to run for Cumberland County sheriff by county citizens determined to control rum-running and organized crime during prohibition. He was elected as the first Democrat to hold that office since the 19th century. When his term ended, he was unable to succeed himself; so Pearl was drafted to run and was elected. Stanley Pace died in a car accident, leaving Pearl Carter Pace to raise their children and to pursue her career in local, state, and national politics.

During World War II, her son, Stanley Carter Pace, a fighter pilot and first lieutenant, was taken as a prisoner of war by the German Reich. Upon returning from the war, Stanley C. Pace put his aerospace engineering degree to work and rose to the chairmanship of TRW. After being pulled from retirement in the 1980s, he assumed the position of restoring the giant defense contractor, General Dynamics, to credibility after grievous ethical lapses brought the company to near dissolution.

Through Pearl Carter Pace's activism in the Republican Party, she became a tireless supporter and friend of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1953, she brought national attention to Kentucky when President Eisenhower appointed her to the War Claims Commission (later the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission). Near the end of his administration, Eisenhower elevated her to the commission chairmanship, making Pearl Carter Pace the third highest ranking woman in his administration, next only to the Treasurer of the United States and the new position of Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and the first Kentucky woman appointed by a president to a national post. Pace was active in the GOP for many years, including a stint from 1948 to 1957 as her state's Republican national committeewoman.