Born Bella Savitsky in New York City May 24, 1920 a month before women in the US won the right to vote, Bella Abzug, known affectionately as "Battling Bella," was a strong figure from early childhood. She particularly enjoyed playing (and beating) the boys at their own games, especially marbles.

Bella joined a left-wing labor Zionist youth group known as , Hashomer Hatzair [the young guard] in grammar school and planned to go to Israel to live on a kibbutz. World War II intervened, however, as well as the death of Bella's father. Bella said "Kaddish" for her father, attending synagogue every morning for a year and "davened" (prayed) despite the congregation's disapproval of a girl taking such a role.

Attending Hunter College, Bella made a spectacular showing, winning a scholarship to Columbia Law School after her first choice, Harvard, turned down her application due to the all-male nature of the Law School at the time. Harvard did not admit women to the Law School until 1952.

Bella had a sterling record at Columbia, winning editorship of the Law Review. She met Martin Abzug, a writer, while vacationing in Miami, and the pair married in 1944, with Martin promising to type Bella's briefs (she never learned to type) and that she would continue to work even after the couple had children, which had been a major stumbling block to Bella's thoughts of marriage.

Bella joined a law firm upon graduation that specialized in labor cases and union locals, and became known as one of the few independent lawyers willing to defend "Communists" during the McCarthy witch hunts. She also defended a black Mississippi man known as Willie McGee, taking the case all the way to the US Supreme Court and winning two stays of execution for McGee, before losing a change of venue appeal.

Despite international press and support, McGee went to the electric chair in 1950, and Bella, pregnant during the final appeals process, suffered a miscarriage.

Bella and a number of her Hunter College friends founded the organization Women Strike for Peace in 1961, which lobbied throughout the 60s for a nuclear test ban treaty, as well as protesting the war in Vietnam.

Bella ran for Congress at the age of 50 in 1970, and was the first woman elected on a women's rights platform. Known for her brash manner, and her spectacular hats, Bella was to be later known as the "third most influential member of the House." Appointed chair of the Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, she co-authored three major pieces of legislation: the Freedom of Information Act, the Government in the Sunshine Act, and the Right to Privacy Act.

Bella was the first member of Congress to call for President Nixon's impeachment, and helped organize the National Women's Political Caucus. Her focus on women's rights helped enact laws against discrimination in financial matters, for child care, family planning and abortion rights.

Bella was re-elected for three terms, serving from 1971-77, and was appointed her chair of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year in 1976, by President Jimmy Carter and later co-chair of the National Advisory Commission for Women.

She ran unsucessfully for the US Senate in 1976, losing narrowly to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She became an international women's rights leader and spokesperson throughout the 80s and helped found founded the Women's Environment and Development Organization in 1990.

Abzug died in New York City on March 31, 1998, of complications after heart surgery. Gloria Steinem, a fellow feminist, said of Abzug, "In a just country, she would have been President."