Ellen Sullivan Woodward

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Ellen Sullivan Woodward (July 11, 1887 – September 23, 1971) was a Mississippi-born government administrator and state legislator who led women’s work programs during the New Deal.

She was born in Oxford, Mississippi, the daughter of attorney William Van Amberg Sullivan, who later served in the U.S. Congress and Senate, and Belle Murray Sullivan. One of five children, she grew up with politics in her family. Her mother died when she was seven. She received schooling in Oxford, Washington, D.C., and Greenville, South Carolina, but had little formal education after age 15. She married Albert Y. Woodward in 1906, and they had one son, Albert Jr., in 1909. After her husband’s death in the mid-1920s, Woodward was elected to finish his term as a Mississippi state representative, becoming the second woman to serve in that role. She served through 1927, focusing on libraries, education, and charities, and she did not seek reelection.

Woodward held several state leadership roles, including director of civic development for the Mississippi State Board of Development (1926–1933) and executive director from 1929 to 1933. She was also a delegate to the 1928 Democratic National Convention. Her public life expanded into federal work when she directed the Women’s Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) from 1933 to 1935, helping create jobs for unemployed women through the Civil Works Administration. From 1935 to 1938 she led the Women’s and Professional Projects of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and was noted as one of the Roosevelt administration’s most powerful women.

Woodward then served on the three-member Social Security Board from 1938 to 1946 and advised on postwar reconstruction and international relief efforts. In 1946 she became director of the Office of Internal Relations of the Federal Security Agency and remained in government service until her retirement in 1953. The WPA projects she oversaw employed hundreds of thousands of women.

In 1947 the University of North Carolina awarded her an honorary degree. Her portrait is in the Mississippi Hall of Fame for her significant contributions to the state and the nation. After retiring, she stayed involved with women’s clubs, the Democratic Party, and charitable organizations. She died in Washington, D.C., in 1971 at the age of 84. Her papers are held by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.