Caroline Benn (1926-2000) grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, in an affluent family with a history of loyalty to the American Republican Party and involvement in local politics. By the late 1940s her independent political thought had developed such that she rejected her Republican background to support the progressive independent Henry Wallace in the 1948 presidential election. Wallace’s platform advocated increased spending on welfare, education and public works, plus new civil rights legislation.
A determinedly private person, Caroline Benn secured an independent academic status for her work to secure the aim of a basic entitlement of a good education for all young people while married to Tony Benn, one of the most prominent post-war socialists in Britain.