1940's Government and Politics | Rankin, Jeannette 1880-1973

FIRST WOMAN ELECTED TO CONGRESS

Lifelong Pacifist.

Because she was the only member of Congress to cast her vote against war with Japan on 8 December 1941, Jeannette Rankin is associated by some with appeasement or even disloyalty. However, her vote was entirely consistent with the views she had championed since she had voted against American entry into World War I in 1917, and she had run for Congress in 1940 as an overtly antiwar candidate. A lifelong pacifist, she was also a leader in movements for women's suffrage and social justice. In 1968, at age 87, she led five thousand women in a march against the war in Vietnam, remaining true to her principles until the very end.

The First Congresswoman.

Born on the western frontier in Montana on 11 June 1880, Rankin became active in the women's suffrage movement early and became legislative secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1913....