Rankin, Jeannette, 1880-1973

Variant names
Dates:
Birth 1880-06-11
Death 1973-05-18
Gender:
Female
Americans
English

Biographical notes:

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was an American politician and women's rights advocate, and the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916, and again in 1940.

Rankin graduated from the University of Montana in 1902. She subsequently attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later the New York, then the Columbia, School of Social Work) before embarking on a career of social work in Seattle, Washington, in 1909. Caught up in the rising tide of sentiment for woman suffrage, she campaigned effectively for the next five years in Washington, California, and Montana on behalf of the cause. In 1914 she became legislative secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and in that same year she led a successful campaign for woman suffrage in her native Montana.

In 1916 she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, thus becoming the first woman to hold a seat in either chamber. In office she introduced the first bill that would have allowed women citizenship independent of their husbands and also supported government-sponsored hygiene instruction in maternity and infancy. Reflecting a deep-seated pacifism, she became an outspoken isolationist and was one of 49 members of Congress to vote against declaring war on Germany in 1917. This unpopular stand cost her the Republican Senate nomination in 1918; she ran as an independent and lost. After the war she became a lobbyist and later returned to social work.

Running on an antiwar platform in 1940, Rankin once again won election to the House. She created a furor as the only legislator to vote against the declaration of war on Japan after the raid on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), effectively terminating her political career with this vote. She did not seek reelection but continued to lecture on various aspects of social reform. She was active in the National Consumers League, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and other reform organizations. Her militant feminism remained unabated as late as the 1960s, when she founded a self-sufficient women’s “cooperative homestead” in Georgia. She also became active again in the peace movement, urging women to demand a halt to the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. On January 15, 1968, at the age of 87, she led 5,000 women, calling themselves the “Jeannette Rankin Brigade,” to the foot of Capitol Hill to demonstrate opposition to the hostilities in Indochina.

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Subjects:

  • Political campaigns
  • Children
  • Draft
  • Droughts
  • Electoral college
  • European War, 1914-1918
  • Farmers
  • Politics and government
  • Legislators
  • Montana
  • Pacifism
  • Pacifists
  • Peace
  • Peace movements
  • Peace movements
  • Preferential ballot
  • Presidents
  • Probate record
  • Prohibition
  • Suffragists
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • Women
  • Women
  • Women
  • Women and peace
  • Women and peace
  • Women and war
  • Women in politics
  • Women legislators
  • Women's rights
  • World War, 1939-1945
  • World War, 1939-1945
  • World War, 1939-1945
  • World War, 1939-1945
  • Peace movements
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • Women
  • Women
  • Women and peace
  • World War, 1939-1945
  • World War, 1939-1945
  • World War, 1939-1945

Occupations:

  • Feminists
  • Lecturers
  • Legislators
  • Pacifists
  • Politicians
  • Ranchers
  • Representatives, U.S. Congress
  • Seamstresses
  • Social workers
  • Suffragists

Places:

  • San Francisco, CA, US
  • Seattle, WA, US
  • Carmel, CA, US
  • Missoula County, MT, US
  • Broadwater County, MT, US
  • Spokane, WA, US
  • New York City, NY, US
  • GA, US

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