Simms, Ruth Hanna McCormick, 1880-1944

Ruth Hanna McCormick (née Ruth Hanna, also known as Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms; March 27, 1880 – December 31, 1944), was an American politician, activist, and publisher. She served one term in the United States House of Representatives, winning an at-large seat in Illinois in 1928. She gave up the chance to run for re-election to seek a United States Senate seat from Illinois. She defeated the incumbent, Senator Charles S. Deneen, in the Republican primary, becoming the first female Senate candidate for a major party. McCormick lost the general election. A decade later, she became the first woman to manage a presidential campaign, although her candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, failed to capture his party's nomination.

Politics were a part of McCormick's life from an early age. She was the daughter of Mark Hanna, a Senator and politician who was instrumental in the election of President William McKinley. McCormick learned politics by watching her father, and put those lessons to use fighting for causes such as women's suffrage and improved working conditions for women. McCormick was instrumental in passing a partial suffrage law in Illinois in 1913, allowing women to vote in municipal and Presidential elections. She also married two politicians, Senator Medill McCormick and, after Senator McCormick's death, Congressman Albert Gallatin Simms. McCormick had the fame, the background and the determination to build a career on the new opportunities for women in high level politics. As a spokesperson for the suffrage and for the Republican party, she made political activism attractive for partisan women.

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