Women In Government
Jeannette Rankin (June 11, 1880-May 18, 1973) was the first woman elected to Congress. She was elected as Montana's Represenative at-large to the house of Representatives on November 9, 1916. While in congress, she fought for women's suffrage and proposed a maternity and infant health bill that became law in 1921. Jeannette Rankin was, at heart, a pacifist (someone opposed to war). She was the only Member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war and is the only person to have voted against U.S. entry into both World Wars. In 1968, Rankin made one of her final antiwar gestures when at the age of 87 she led the "Jeannette Rankin Brigade" to Washington, D.C. in protest against the Vietnam War.
Jeannette was born near Missoula, Montana and was the eldest of seven children. Her father, John Rankin, was a successful rancher and lumber merchant and her mother, Olive Pickering Rankin, was a schoolteacher. Jeannette Rankin graduated from the University of Montana in 1902 with a degree in biology. When Jeannette's father died in 1904 she assumed responsibility for her five sisters and her brother, Wellington, with whom she became particularly close and who later served as her political adviser.
In 1908 Jeannette left Montana to study at the New York School of Philanthropy in New York City. After practicing as a social worker in Seattle, Washington, and finding she did not like her new profession, she enrolled at the University of Washington. At that time the women's suffrage movement was gaining momentum throughout the country, and Rankin joined the state suffrage organization. For five years she actively campaigned for the cause in Washington, California, Ohio, and Montana. Eventually she served as legislative secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and her efforts in Montana resulted in women winning the right to vote in 1914.
Having gained experience in social reform, Rankin decided to pursue a political career. In 1916 she ran successfully for a seat in the U.S. Congress on a progressive Republican platform that called for national women's suffrage, child protection laws, and prohibition, among other issues. Upon being elected she achieved several distinctions: although she was a Republican, she was voted into office in a Democratic state; she was the first woman ever to serve in either chamber of Congress; and she won her seat in spite of the fact that most women in the United States could not even vote. When Rankin went to Washington, D.C., her colleagues on Capitol Hill expected the congresswoman from Montana to be riding a horse and toting a six-shooter. Immediately putting such expectations to rest, Rankin revealed herself to be widely traveled, well-educated, and highly sophisticated.
Four days after Jeannette took her seat in Congress she was caught up in a debate about whether the United States should declare war against Germany. When she ran for Congress there had been little talk of war, although her constituents knew she was a pacifist and the general mood was isolationist, in that most Americans wanted the country to stay out of other countries' affairs. By 1917 the mood had shifted as President Woodrow Wilson ended diplomatic relations with Germany and American merchant ships were sunk by German battleships. Wilson called a special session of Congress in April 6, 1917, and the Senate passed a resolution to go to war. When the issue went before the House of Representatives, Rankin became one of 56 members of Congress who voted against declaring war on Germany.
Jeannette's brother Wellington had urged her to vote for war, but she replied that sentiment in Montana was against U.S. involvement. She later released a statement in which she explained her position, "I knew that we were asked to vote for a commercial war, that none of the idealistic hopes would be carried out, and I was aware of the falseness of much of the propaganda. It was easy to stand against the pressure of the militarists, but very difficult to go against the friends and dear ones who felt that I was making a needless sacrifice by voting against the war, since my vote would not be a decisive one.... I said I would listen to those who wanted war and would not vote until the last opportunity and if I could see any reason for going to war I would change it." After the second roll call Rankin voted "No." Although fifty-five male members of the Senate and House had also opposed going to war, Rankin's vote received the most attention. According to some unverified reports, she had acted "just like a woman" and cried as she cast her vote. Amid calls for her resignation, several suffragist groups in New York even canceled her speaking engagements.
In the true spirit of democracy, once war had been declared, Rankin promoted Liberty Bonds, which were sold to support the war effort, and she voted for the draft. However, she voted against the Espionage Act, which targeted foreign residents of the United States and suppressed dissent. During the remainder of her term she continued her advocacy of women's rights by introducing the first bill that would have given women citizenship independent from their husbands, and she supported government sponsorship of prenatal and child-care education for women. In 1918 Rankin unsuccessfully sought the Republic nomination for the Senate, then ran as an independent and lost that campaign as well. The following year she joined Jane Addams as a delegate to the Second International Congress of Women.
For the next two decades Rankin worked in Washington, D.C., as a lobbyist for various groups, including the Women's Peace Union and the National Council for the Prevention of War. During that time she also established a residence in Athens, Georgia, and founded the Georgia Peace Society.
In 1940 Rankin again ran successfully for a House seat, this time on an anti-war platform. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7, 1941, she was the only member of Congress to vote against declaration of war against Japan. Once again her stand caused a furor, and this time it put an end to her political career. She did not run for re-election, choosing instead to work for social reform, founding a women's "cooperative homestead" in Georgia. Drawn to the work of Indian pacifist Mohandas Gandhi, she traveled to India seven times between 1946 and 1971. Rankin returned to the national debate in the 1960s when, alarmed by the hostilities in Indochina, she urged women to organize in protest. On January 15, 1968, she led more than 5,000 women who called themselves the Jeannette Rankin Brigade to Capitol Hill to demonstrate their opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. She was eighty-seven years old. Rankin considered campaigning for a third congressional term, but her health began to fail. She died on May 18, 1973, in Carmel, New York. In 1985 a bronze statue of Rankin was placed in the U.S. Capitol.
Edith Nourse Rodgers (1881-September 10, 1960), took her husband, John Jacob Rogers (August 18, 1881-March 28, 1925), place as Representative from Massachusetts when he died on June 25, 1925 and was re-elected to the seventieth and to the sixteen succeeding Congresses. She was born in Saco, York County, Maine, in 1881 and graduated from the Rogers Hall School in Lowell, Massachussettes and from the Madame Julien�s School in Paris, France. Edith served with the American Red Cross in the care of disabled soldiers during the First World War (1917-1922). She was appointed a personal representative of President Harding in the care of disabled veterans in 1922 and was reappointed by President Coolidge in 1923. Edith served from June 30, 1925, until her death in Boston, Massachusetts, September 10, 1960. She is buried by her husband's side at Lowell Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts. Edith Rodgers holds the record for longevity of service by women in the house (35 years).
Her appointment to fill a vacancy created by the incumbent�s death was something of a political ploy because it came while the Senate was in recess. Coming in 1922, however, so soon after ratification of the nineteenth amendment, the appointment took on immense symbolic importance, and women around the country campaigned for Mrs. Felton to be officially seated. When President Harding refused to call a special session, Senator Walker F. George agreed to delay presentation of his credentials for a day so that she might make history. In one sense it was a meaningless, perhaps even condescending parody; Mrs. Felton herself called it a "joke". But it acknowledged her years of political activism and set the stage for women to become serious participants in the political process. Minutes after being sworn in, the eighty-seven year old rose to address her temporary colleagues: "Mr. President, the women of this country are going to come and sit here. There may not be very many the next few years, but in time they will come. When they do I pledge that this body will get ability, integrity and unstinted usefulness."
Rebecca Latimer was born in 1835 to a plantation family in DeKalb County. After graduating first in her class from Madison Female College, she married Dr. William Felton, a widower from Cartersville who was twelve years older than her, a medical doctor, farmer, Methodist minister, state legislator, and congressman.
As her husband�s secretary and counselor, Rebecca Felton had a ringside view of politics. She was an able assistant, effectively supporting Dr. Felton�s efforts on behalf of prohibition, education, and penal reform, particularly ending the convict lease system. When he retired from politics, she continued to crusade for a separate women�s penal institution, prohibition and women�s suffrage. Although she held advanced views on many social and political issues, her opinions on race reflected the prevailing attitudes of white southerners in that era; in fact, she frequently used racial prejudice to justify her causes.
Her most far-reaching influence may have been through her writing. In 1899 she began a column for the Atlanta Journal�s statewide Semi-Weekly Edition which she used to speak out on everything from making farm life more appealing to young people to advice on morals and manners. She also edited The Cartersville Courant for a year and wrote two books, My Memoirs of Georgia Politics in 1911, and Country life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth in 1919, many pamphlets, and numerous lectures. In addition to the issues already noted she pushed for compulsory school attendance, vocational training for poor white girls (she and a New York woman established the Georgia Training School For Girls in Atlanta), and the admission of women to the University of Georgia.
She was active in numerous civic and fraternal organizations, and helped to manage the Atlanta and Chicago Expositions in the 1890�s. She was State Chairman of the Women�s Auxiliary to the "Bull Moose" Progressive National Convention in Chicago in 1912, and the sole woman to be called into conference when Warren Harding was made President of the United States. She bore five children, only one of whom, a son, survived to adulthood. She died in 1930 and is buried in Cartersville.
In 1968 Chisholm was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She defeated the civil-rights leader James Farmer, making her the first black woman ever elected to congress. In Congress she quickly became known as a strong liberal who opposed weapons development and the war in Vietnam and favored full-employment proposals. As a candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president in 1972, she won 152 delegates before withdrawing from the race.
Chisholm was a founder of the National Women's Political Caucus and supported the Equal Rights Amendment. She also legalized abortions throughout her congressional career, which lasted from 1969 to 1983. She wrote the autobiographical works Unbought and Unbossed (1970) and The Good Fight (1973).
After her retirment from Congress, Chisholm remained active on the lecture circuit. Then she held the position of Purington Professor at Mount Holyoke College (1983-87) and was a visiting scholar at Spelman College (1985).
In 1974, after working for the special U.S. panel investigating a possible impeachment of President Richard Nixon, Hillary moved to Askansas, where she began teaching law at the University of Arkansas.
In 1977 Hillary founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and joined the Rose Law Firm, where she practiced until 1992, specializing in patent infringement and intellectual property. She was twice named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal.
After Her role as First Lady she won her place as Senator of New York. Hillary's next project will be to run for president and maybe become the first female president of the United States.
Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835-1930) was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, but that distinction, impressive as it is, does not by itself make her a Georgia Woman of Achievement. She served, after all, for just one day.
Shirley Chisholm (November 30, 1924 - Still Living) was born on November 30, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in Barbados and Brooklyn, and graduated from Brooklyn College (B.A., 1946). While she was teaching nursery school and serving as director of the Friends Day Nursery in Brooklyn, she studied elementary education at Columbia University (M.A., 1952) and married Conrad Q. Chisholm in 1949 (divorced 1977). Shirley was an education consultant for New York City's day-care division and was active with community and political groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and her district's Unity Democratic Club. In 1964-68 Shirley represented her Brooklyn district in the New York state legislature.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (October 26, 1947- Still living) ,former First Lady, was the first student ever asked to give the commencement address at Wellesley College, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1969. At Yale Law School, Hillary met her lifelong mentor, Meriam Wright Edelman, who founded the Children's Defence Fund, an organization that lobbies (the practice of attempting to influence legislation) for children welfare. Hillary worked at Yale as a staff attorney for a year after guaduating from law school in 1973, and later chaired the organization's board.