O'Day, Caroline, 1875-1943

Caroline Love Goodwin O'Day (June 22, 1869 – January 4, 1943) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Born Caroline Love Goodwin on a plantation in Perry, Georgia, she graduated from the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens, Georgia, and for eight years studied art in Paris (with James McNeill Whistler), Munich, and Holland, and briefly at the Cooper Union. In 1902 she married Daniel T. O’Day, son of a Standard Oil Company executive.

O'Day first became involved in politics by joining the Westchester, New York League of Women Voters, where she became an officer and first met Eleanor Roosevelt. After the death of her husband in 1916, Caroline O’Day dedicated herself to improving the lives of working-class poor in the inner city. She served on the board of directors and volunteered at Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. A pacifist who opposed U.S. entry into World War I, O’Day became vice chair of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Her first political appointment came in 1921 when New York Governor Alfred E. Smith named her to the state board of social welfare, supervising care for dependent juveniles. In 1923 O’Day became associate chair of the New York state Democratic Committee and directed its women’s division—holding both positions until her death. As a reward, the party appointed her chair of the New York delegation to the 1924 Democratic National Convention. he worked for Smith’s presidential campaign in 1928 and for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s successful 1932 campaign. After Roosevelt’s inauguration, O’Day was named New York’s director of the National Recovery Administration.

In 1934, 1936, 1938 and 1940, O'Day was elected at-large as a Democrat to the 74th, 75th, 76th and 77th United States Congresses, holding office from January 3, 1935, to January 3, 1943. While in the House, she was Chairwoman of the Committee on Election of President, Vice President, and Representatives (75th through 77th Congresses). Among the legislation she sponsored or co-sponsored was the Wagner-O'Day Act, the predecessor to the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act. She criticized the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1939 when they refused to allow African-American singer Marian Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall and opposed legislation to create detention camps for foreign nationals, a plan that foreshadowed later wartime internment camps for Japanese Americans.

Poor health brought O’Day’s career to a premature end. Her 1940 election had been carried on largely by her daughter, Elia, who made campaign appearances for her convalescing mother. O’Day declined to run for a fifth term in 1942, after she suffered complicating injuries from a fall. O’Day died on January 4, 1943, a day after the end of her congressional service. In observing O’Day’s popularity among her House colleagues, the Washington Post eulogized her as “a firm friend, a cultivated companion, and a conscientious public servant.”