Pratt, Ruth Sears Baker, 1877-1965

<p>Ruth Baker Pratt, a New York City icon of government reform and fiscal conservatism, won election to the House of Representatives on the eve of the worst economic disaster ever to befall the country. Congresswoman Pratt’s support for the Herbert Hoover administration’s cautious programs to remedy the Great Depression held firm, even as the national crisis worsened, and Americans, in ever-greater numbers, looked to the federal government for relief.</p>

<p>Ruth Sears Baker was born on August 24, 1877, in Ware, Massachusetts, daughter of the cotton manufacturer Edwin H. Baker and Carrie V. Baker. Ruth Baker attended Dana Hall in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and Wellesley College, where she majored in mathematics. She also studied violin at the Conservatory of Liege in Belgium. In 1904 Ruth Baker married John Teele Pratt, a lawyer and the son of Charles Pratt, a pioneer Standard Oil Company executive and founder of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. The couple settled in New York City’s Upper East Side and raised five children: Virginia, Sally, Phyllis, Edwin, and John Jr. Ruth established strong ties with the community by engaging in a range of philanthropic activities. When her husband died in 1927, he left Ruth Pratt a fortune estimated at more than $9 million.</p>

<p>Pratt’s involvement in Republican politics in New York began during World War I, when she worked with the Woman’s Liberty Loan Committee. She served on the mayor’s wartime food commission and met Herbert Hoover, then head of the National Food Administration. She remained a Hoover devotee throughout her political life, working for his presidential nomination in 1920 and helping to deliver the New York state delegation to Hoover’s side at the 1928 GOP convention. Pratt initially balked at the notion of elective office, choosing instead to focus on the upbringing of her five children. In January 1924, she was chosen as the associate GOP leader of New York’s Upper East Side Assembly district—providing her a powerful political base for the next decade.</p>

<p>Ruth Baker Pratt (August 24, 1877 – August 23, 1965), was an American politician and the first female representative to be elected from New York.</p>

<p>On August 24, 1877, Pratt was born as Ruth Sears Baker in Ware, Massachusetts to Carrie V. Baker and Edwin H. Baker, a cotton manufacturer.</p>

<p>Pratt attended Dana Hall. Pratt studied mathematics at Wellesley College. She also spent a year and a half studying violin at the Conservatory of Liege, Belgium.</p>

<p>In the 1920 presidential election, Pratt was a presidential elector for Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. In 1924, she supported and drew in women's support for Frank J. Coleman Jr. candidacy for leadership of the Fifteenth Assembly District; Pratt was later made associate leader of the District before she became secretary. She was a member of the Board of Aldermen of New York City in 1925, being the first woman to serve; re-elected in 1927 and served until March 1, 1929. She was a member of the Republican National Committee 1929-1943; delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1924, 1932, 1936, 1940; delegate to the Republican State conventions in 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1930, 1936, and 1938.[7] She served as president of the Women's National Republican Club 1943-1946.</p>