There have been many famous political firsts in the history of the United States. Jeannette Pickering Rankin is no exception. She was the first woman elected to the United States Congress in 1917. Interestingly, she was a member of Congress before the U.S. Constitutional Amendment XIX granting women the right to vote was ratified.
Jeannette Rankin was born near Missoula, Montana on June 11, 1880. Her father was a rancher and her mother was a schoolteacher. Jeannette was their first child. She attended public schools in Montana, and graduated from the University of Montana at Missoula in 1902 with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. She began promoting the women’s suffrage movement - an effort to secure women’s voting rights - in 1910.
After working for the New York Women Suffrage Party and the American Woman Suffrage Association, Jeannette Rankin returned to Montana. She continued her working on women’s suffrage through speaking engagements and organization efforts. Rankins involvement helped Montanan women gain the right to vote in 1914.
Rankin decided to run as a Republican for the United States House of Representatives in 1916. Her brother a prominent businessman supported her financially. Some people thought that her campaign would sour the fight for women’s voting rights. Her victory on August 29, 2016 sealed her place in history; she became the first women elected to U.S. Congress.
Jeannette Rankin was officially sworn in as a member of 65th Congress on April 2, 1917. One of her first votes was against declaring war on Germany, which marked the United States’s entry into World War I. She continued supporting women’s suffrage, and she is appointed to a committee formed to examine the issue. In 1918, she opened debate in the U.S. House of Representatives on a resolution to grant women the right to vote. It was the precursor to the eventual constitutional amendment ratified two years later.
Rankin did not run for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives. Instead, she sought election to the United States Senate. Her bid was very unsuccessful. She left Montana and moved to Georgia, where she purchased a farm. Despite the move, she maintained her status as a Montana resident. More than 20 years after her first term in Congress, Rankin won the 1940 election for the 77th Congress as a Montana Representative. In her second term she was an outspoken opponent of World War II. After leaving Congress in 1943, she continued to advocate for women’s rights and world peace until her death in 1973.
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