Background on Mary Wentworth
An activist for social justice and peace, Mary L. Wentworth was born in Maine on April 15, 1929. Following her undergraduate work at Smith College, Wentworth parlayed her linguistic skills into a job in 1951 with the top secret Armed Forces Security Agency in Washington, D.C. But it was only after marrying Alexander Maccoll, an educator, in 1952 and moving to Philadelphia, Pa., that Wentworth was drawn into social activism. Galvanized initially by the civil rights movement and the desire to confront racism, she began to get involved in antiwar protests during the 1960s and became an ardent feminist by the end of the decade.
After divorcing her husband in 1973, reclaiming her maiden name, and relocating to Amherst, Massachusetts, Wentworth began to delve deeper into social justice work. Among her more important commitments, she worked at the new Everywoman's Center at UMass Amherst during the late 1970s and early 1980s and she became director of the Poor Woman's Task Force. The list of organizations she was involved with is both long and exceedingly diverse, ranging from Colonial Village Tenants Union, to the NAACP, the Nuclear Freeze Campaign, CPPAX, and the Grey Panthers, and she particularly drawn to anti-poverty activism and the anti-imperialist struggle that grew around U.S. intervention in Central America during the Reagan years. She was arrested in 1979 during the protests at the Seabrook nuclear power plant and again during antiwar protests at Westover Air Force Base in 1985.
In addition to issue-oriented activism, Wentworth has been drawn at several points into formal politics. A regular presence in Amherst town meeting, she has had a deep engagement with local issues surrounding education, poverty, and housing, though most famously, she opposed thirteen-term Republican Congressman Silvio O. Conte for his seat in the House of Representatives. Although Conte occupied the liberal end of the Republican spectrum and was popular enough that he often ran unchallenged, Wentworth was highly critical of his stance on social issues and his record of cutting funding for social programs. In 1984, she won the Democratic nomination and ran as a peace candidate in a bid to unseat the congressman, who was completing his thirteenth term in office. Although the Democratic Party seemed little interested in opposing a powerful politician like Conte, especially with a long-shot candidate, Wentworth nevertheless won a comparatively strong 27% share of the vote.
An internationalist, Wentworth traveled widely during the 1970s and 1980s, including early trips to the People's Republic of China (1974) to Central America, Cuba (1978), and Europe. A writer, she is a frequent contributor to the Hampshire Daily Gazette and the Valley Advocate, and has written an autobiography Discovering America: A Political Journey (2003). She currently lives in Amherst.
