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Biography of Madeleine May KuninName: Madeleine May KuninBirth Date: September 28, 1933 Death Date: N/A Place of Birth: Zurich, Switzerland Nationality: American Gender: Female Occupations: governor Madeleine May Kunin The first woman governor of Vermont was Madeleine Kunin (nee May; born 1933). As a three-term Democratic governor (1985-1991), her major concerns were fiscal responsibility, education, and the environment.Madeleine (May) Kunin was born September 28, 1933, in Zurich, Switzerland, the second child of Ferdinand May, a German-Jewish shoe importer, and Renee Bloch May. Pressed for money following the death of her husband in 1936 and fearing the growing Nazi threat to European Jews, Renee May left Switzerland in 1940 with her two children to join relatives living in the Forest Hills neighborhood of New York City. To support her family, May held jobs as a seamstress, a French tutor, and a baby-sitter. The Mays eventually moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Working as a waitress to pay her expenses, Madeleine attended the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, graduating in 1956 with honors in history. She then took the M.S. degree in journalism at Columbia University and secured …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…her third term as governor, that she would not seek re-election. "We are living in a time when we set the stage nationally for political disillusionment when politicians make promises that are impossible to keep. Worst among these is the promise of no new taxes, while guaranteeing continued, or even vastly enhanced, results," she said. Further Reading In the absence of a full biography, those seeking additional information about Madeleine Kunin can consult several articles. She was profiled in People magazine (April 1, 1985). Additional sources are Nancy Day, "Madeleine Kunin," Working Woman (July 1986), and Sally Johnson, "The Kunins: A Family Portrait," in Vermont Sunday Magazine (March 31, 1985). "Green Crisis" in The Economist (January 23, 1988) and Kunin's own "Lessons From One Woman's Career" in Journal of State Government (September-October 1987) were also of value. Vermont's largest newspaper, the Burlington Free Press, was another useful source. See also a brief mention in Platt's Oilgram News (December 11, 1992). |