Pratt, Eliza Jane, 1902-1981

<p>A longtime House legislative aide for a string of Congressmen from a south-central North Carolina district, Eliza Pratt developed a rapport with voters and knowledge of legislative interests in the district that eventually exceeded that of most other local politicians. When her boss, Congressman William Olin Burgin, died in April 1946, Pratt seemed a natural choice to succeed him. Her election a month later, by a far wider margin than any of her predecessor’s victories, made Pratt the first woman to represent her home state in Congress.</p>

<p>She was born Eliza Jane Pratt in Morven, North Carolina, on March 5, 1902, one of seven children of James Pratt and Lena Little Pratt. James Pratt was a merchant and farmer who instilled in Eliza a passion for gardening. She enrolled at Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina, planning to study music, but she left school to seek employment after her father’s health failed. She later attended Kings Business College in Charlotte and Temple Secretarial School in Washington, DC. Pratt never married and raised no children. She became editor of the Montgomerian (Troy, North Carolina) newspaper in 1923. In 1924 she resigned her position to accept an offer to serve in Washington, DC, as an administrative assistant to North Carolina Congressman William Cicero Hammer, who represented a large swath in the southwestern part of the state. When Hammer died in 1930, Pratt went on to work for a succession of North Carolina Representatives from the same district: Hinton James, John Walter Lambeth, and William O. Burgin. During the 1930s and 1940s, Pratt was active in various clubs and social programs for North Carolinians who worked on Capitol Hill.</p>

<p>Following Congressman Burgin’s death, North Carolina Democratic Party leaders began the search for a successor. Unlike most other southern states during that era, North Carolina was not a one-party state. While the congressional delegation remained solidly Democratic, an active Republican Party had its stronghold in the western piedmont of the state. It had been key when the state voted for the GOP presidential candidate, Herbert Hoover, in 1928. Preparing for the 1946 elections, Republicans hoped to capitalize on voter discontent with the Harry S. Truman administration’s postwar economic policies.</p>

<p>Eliza Jane Pratt, newspaper editor, congressional staff assistant, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was born in Morven, Anson County, one of seven children of James L., a farmer, and Lena Valetta Little Pratt. She attended public school in Morven until age nine, when her family moved to Raeford. In the fall of 1918 she transferred to Queens College from the Asheville Normal and Collegiate Institute. She remained at Queens for two years, leaving without a degree when her father became ill.</p>

<p>In 1923, as editor of the weekly Troy newspaper, the Montgomerian , Eliza Pratt met Eighth District congressman William C. Hammer while covering his speech in Candor during the town's peach festival. Hammer soon offered her a position in Washington as his administrative assistant. Beginning in 1924 she worked as staff assistant to Hammer and eventually for four other congressmen from the Eighth District.</p>

<p>Representative William O. Burgin, for whom Miss Pratt worked, died in April 1946 and the North Carolina Democratic Executive Committee nominated her in the special election to fill Burgin's term. During the five-week campaign that followed she paid all of her own expenses and was easily elected on 25 May 1946 as representative from the Eighth Congressional District. She was appointed to three committees: Pensions, Territories, and Flood Control. Congress adjourned in late summer and she was not a candidate for reelection, probably because of the illness and subsequent death of her mother.</p>