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Maurine Brown Neuberger was born in Cloverdale, Oregon, in 1907. She earned a teaching certificate at the Oregon College of Education (now part of Western Oregon University) in 1924. In 1929, she graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor of arts in English and physical education. She also did graduate work at UCLA. She worked as an English teacher at Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon. In 1945, she and Democratic Congressman Richard Neuberger were married. After Richard Neuberger was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1948, Maurine Neuberger also entered politics. In 1951, she was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives, where she represented Multnomah County until 1955. Richard Neuberger died in 1960, and Maurine ran for and won his Senate seat that same year. While in the Senate, she served on President John F. Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women. In 1964, Neuberger and Philip Solomon were married. That same year, she declined to run for a second term, instead relocating to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she taught at Radcliffe and at Boston University. In 1967, she and Solomon divorced, and she returned to Portland. She taught at Reed College and continued to have an active role in the Oregon Democratic Party. She died in 2000.