Jeannette Rankin Elected on This Day – First Woman Elected to Congress
Jeannette Rankin, a Progressive Republican from Montana, was elected to the House of Representatives on this day, the first woman ever elected to Congress.
Before being elected to Congress, Rankin has been an active suffragist, working with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) on behalf of granting women the right to vote.
One month after taking her seat in the House, Rankin on April 6, 1917 voted against U.S. entry into World War I. She was one of only 50 members of the House to vote no. Because of the wave of patriotic fever that swept the country after the U.S. entered the war, she was defeated for re-election in 1918.
In 1940, Rankin was again elected to the House of Representatives. And on the day after Pearl Harbor, December 8, 1941, Rankin voted against a Declaration of War, making her the only member of Congress to vote against entering both world wars.
At age 87 she led the Jeanette Rankin Brigade at the “Sisterhood is Powerful” march for women’s rights in Washington, DC, on January 15, 1968.
Rankin died on May 18, 1973, at age 92.
Rankin on April 6, 1917: “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war.”
Rankin on December 8, 1942: “As a woman I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.”
Learn more: James J. Lopach and Jean A. Luckowski, Jeannette Rankin: A Political Woman (2005)
See the report on the number of women in Congress, for each session 1917-2014: http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270E%2C*PLS%3D%22%40%20%20%0A
Learn more about Rankin at the National Women’s History Museum: https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/jeanette-rankin/