Byron, Katharine Edgar, 1903-1976

Katharine Edgar Byron (October 25, 1903 – December 28, 1976) was a U.S. Congresswoman who represented the 6th congressional district of Maryland from May 27, 1941 to January 3, 1943. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the first woman elected to Congress from Maryland.

Born Katharine Edgar in Detroit, Michigan, she attended independent schools during her youth, such as the Liggett School in Detroit, the Westover School of Middlebury, Connecticut, and the Holton-Arms School of Bethesda, Maryland. In 1922, Katharine met and married William Devereux Byron, a World War I aviator and the owner of a leather manufacturing business. William Byron would go on to serve as mayor of Williamsport, Maryland, a member of the state senate, and a member of the Maryland Roads Commission before his election to Congress, serving there from 1939 until his death in 1941.

Upon her husband's death, Katharine Bryan decided to seek her husband’s seat in a special election scheduled for late May 1941. Pledging not to seek re-election in 1942, she was chosen as the Democratic nominee for the seat and eked out a narrow victory. During her time in the House, Byron became a firm supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s foreign policies during World War II, advocating amending the Neutrality Act during World War II and giving one of five speeches on December 8, 1941 in favor of President Franklin Roosevelt's declaration of war on Japan.

Contrary to her earlier promise not to seek re-election, Congresswoman Byron filed for the Democratic primary in the summer of 1942, but she withdrew shortly thereafter, leaving the nomination to Lieutenant Colonel E. Brooke Lee, who eventually lost in the general election. Much of Byron’s postcongressional career was spent as a Red Cross volunteer. In 1970, she took to the campaign trail again, helping her son, Goodloe Edgar Byron, win election to the U.S. House in a district that covered much of the region that hers had 30 years earlier. Still active in Washington D.C.'s social circuit, Katherine Byron died in Georgetown.