Conservative political activist Phyllis Schlafly dies at 92

Phyllis Schlafly, the founder of the influential conservative group Eagle Forum who helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, died Monday. She was 92.

A spokesman for the Eagle Forum said Schlafly died of natural causes at her home in St. Louis, Missouri. Schlafly first garnered attention in 1964, when she wrote and self-published the book A Choice Not an Echo, which helped Barry Goldwater snag the Republican presidential nomination. She called that the most productive year of her life — she also ran the Illinois Federation of Republican Women, was vice president of the National Federation of Republican Women, became a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and gave birth to her sixth child.

In 1972, she began her battle against the Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in Congress in 1923, which would have guaranteed equal rights under the law regardless of gender. She argued it would mark the end of the traditional family and motherhood, and her work led Newsweek to dub her the "first lady of anti-feminism" in 1977. By the time she became involved in the campaign against the ERA, 30 states had ratified it, but the amendment ultimately fell three states short of the 38 needed for ratification, and it was defeated in 1982. Schlafly attended Washington University and Radcliffe College, and earned a bachelor's degree in political science, a master's in government, and a law degree. In 1949, she married her husband, Fred Schlafly, who died in 1993, and the couple had six children. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice and authored several books; her final one, The Conservative Case for Trump, is out Tuesday.

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