Elizabeth Hanford Dole was born July 29, 1936, in Salisbury, North Carolina. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University (1958) and from Harvard Law School (1965). She also holds a master's degree in Education and Government from Harvard University.

During the 1960s, Dole headed the White House Office of Consumer Affairs under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon (1969-1973). Thereafter, she served as a member of the Federal Trade Commission (1973-1979) and as director of the Office of Public Liaison for President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1983. In 1983, Dole became President Reagan's secretary of transportation, becoming the first woman to hold that position; she served in that post until 1986.

President George H.W. Bush appointed her secretary of labor in 1989, and Dole served in that position for a year. In 1991, she left government to become the president of the American Red Cross, where she stayed until 1999. In 1996, her husband, Senator Robert Dole of Kansas, was the Republican nominee for president, but President Bill Clinton won reelection. 

Elizabeth Dole ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2000, and then served in the US Senate from 2003 to 2009 as the Republican senator from North Carolina. Aside from her career in government, Dole also served on the Duke University Board (1974-1985) and on the Board of Overseers for Harvard University (1990-1996).