Early Life, Education, and Early Political Career
Slaughter was born Dorothy Louise McIntosh to Oscar Lewis (Mack), a blacksmith for a coal mine, and Daisy Grace McIntosh on August 14, 1929, in Lynch, Kentucky, a coal mining town built by a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. Slaughter had two brothers, Philip and David as well as two sisters, Marjorie and Virginia. Her sister Virginia died of pneumonia while she was a child; Slaughter would later cite this as her reason for earning degrees in microbiology and public health.
The family moved to Monticello, Kentucky, where Slaughter attended high school. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, where she studied microbiology. After graduating with a bachelor's degree, she went on to earn a master's degree in public health, also from the University of Kentucky.
After graduate school, she went to work for a major chemicals manufacturer doing market research. Already involved in community groups like the Scouting in New York and the League of Women Voters, Slaughter became increasingly concerned with local political and community issues. She was involved in a local environmental group, the Perinton Greenlands Association, which promoted recycling and opposed development of Harts Woods. Slaughter decided to run for the Monroe County Legislature, winning on her third try. One and a half terms into her service on the County Legislature, she accepted an offer from then- New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo to serve as his regional coordinator in the Rochester area. When Cuomo was elected lieutenant governor, Slaughter stayed on as his Rochester regional coordinator.
In 1982 local Democrats approached Slaughter with a desire to see her run for the New York State Assembly against the United States Republican Party incumbent Tom Hanna, whom she eventually defeated by a narrow margin. She was reelected by 10 points in 1984.
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