Ignore ‘Mrs. America.’ Here’s the True Story of Phyllis Schlafly.

Phyllis Schlafly was one of the most influential women of the second half of the 20th century, playing a key role in the 1964 Republican presidential nomination of Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, helping to found the powerful pro-family movement in the early 1970s, and heading STOP ERA, which defeated the liberal establishment’s all-out effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.

I’m reminded of all this by “Mrs. America,” a nine-part miniseries set to begin streaming April 15 on Hulu. Oscar winner Cate Blanchett stars as Schlafly in the drama about the fight over the ERA.

As a young woman during World War II, Schlafly worked as a ballistics gunner and technician at the largest ammunition plant in the world.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Washington University and received a master’s degree from Radcliffe. She obtained her law degree while in her 50s, and wrote more than 20 books on politics, nuclear weapons, U.S. foreign policy, and the Constitution.

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