Margaret Chase Smith First Woman Elected to Serve in Both Houses of Congress
Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, was elected to the Senate, making her the first woman to serve in both Houses of Congress. Other women had previously served in the Senate by appointment to finish a male senator’s term. A special election was held on this date due to the retirement of the incumbent senator.
Senator Smith is most famous for her rebuke to Senator Joe McCarthy, on June 1, 1950, in which she condemned his reckless anti-Communist tactics. She was ignored and even punished by the Republican leaders in the Senate by being removed from some committee assignments.
She was the only woman in the Senate in 1950. Following the 2018 elections, there were 26 women in the Senate, 17 Democrats and 9 Republicans.
In 1964 she was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President (see below).
The first woman elected to the House of Representatives was Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, who was elected on November 7, 1916.
Read: Patricia Ward Wallace, Politics of Conscience: A Biography of Margaret Chase Smith (1995)
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
Watch Margaret Chase Smith and Eleanor Roosevelt on Face the Nation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-yuKotSxYw
Learn more about women who ran for President: https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/president/president.html