Honeyman, Nan Wood, 1881-1970

<p>Nan Wood Honeyman (July 15, 1881 – December 10, 1970) was an American politician from the state of Oregon. A native of New York, she was the daughter of author and attorney Charles Erskine Scott Wood. After growing up in Oregon, she served in the Oregon House of Representatives and the Oregon State Senate. Between these offices, Honeyman became the first woman elected to the United States Congress from Oregon in 1936.</p>

<p>She was born Nan Wood in West Point, New York, in 1881 to the noted libertarian author Charles Erskine Scott Wood (died 1944) and Nanny Moale Wood (died 1933). She moved with her parents three years later to Portland, Oregon, where she graduated from St. Helens Hall (later incorporated in the Oregon Episcopal School) in 1898. Nan was one of five children: her siblings were Berwick Bruce, Elisa, Erskine, and William Maxwell. Her education continued later at the Finch School in New York City, where she began a lifelong friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt.</p>

<p>She married David Honeyman in 1907, with whom she raised three children and was active in civic and humanitarian organizations before becoming involved in politics. Honeyman served as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1933, which ratified the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, repealing prohibition. She was a member of the Oregon House of Representatives from 1935 to 1937 and served as a delegate to the Democratic national conventions in 1936 and 1940.</p>

<p>A Roosevelt family friend and New Deal stalwart, Nan Wood Honeyman of Oregon won election to the House of Representatives during the 1936 landslide re-election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). As an unreconstructed supporter of the President, Honeyman experienced the promises and pitfalls of hitching her political wagon to executive programs that did not always rest well with her constituents.</p>

<p>Nan Wood was born in West Point, New York, on July 15, 1881. Her father was Charles Erskine Scott Wood, soldier, poet, popular author, and former adjutant of the United States Military Academy. In 1883 he resigned from the Army and moved his family to Portland, Oregon. “Nanny” attended private schools and graduated from St. Helen’s Hall in 1898. She later attended the Finch School in New York City for three years, where she studied music and established a lifelong friendship with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1907 she married David Taylor Honeyman, secretary-treasurer of the Honeyman Hardware Company in Portland, and they raised three children: Nancy, David, and Judith. David Honeyman, whom his wife described as a “Roosevelt Republican,” was supportive of her nascent political career though he was determined to “keep my wife’s politics out of my business.”</p>

<p>Nan Honeyman became active in local and state politics in her late 40s as an anti-Prohibition activist. Though a teetotaler herself, Honeyman rejected the idea that “any law governing people’s personal conduct should be a part of the Constitution.” In 1928 she became head of the Oregon division of the Women’s National Organization for Prohibition Reform. Two years later, she aligned with liberal interests in the state and became vice chair of the Oregon Democratic Committee. The party asked her to run for Congress in 1930 as Portland’s U.S. Representative. It was a testament to what party leaders believed Honeyman’s potential was as a vote getter. Since the district was created through reapportionment in 1912, only one Democrat had ever won election there and, then, only for a single term. Honeyman declined the offer but campaigned actively for the eventual Democratic candidate, General Charles H. Martin. Martin won election to two consecutive terms. In 1933 Honeyman served as president of the state constitutional convention which ratified the Twenty-First Amendment, repealing Prohibition. A year later, when Martin won election as Oregon governor, party leaders again prevailed on Honeyman to run for the Portland seat. She again declined, according to one newspaper account, because she was apprehensive about her lack of experience in elective office. She instead campaigned for and won a seat in the Oregon house of representatives. Honeyman later served as a delegate to the Democratic national conventions of 1936 and 1940.</p>