Jeannette Rankin: The First Woman Member of U.S. Congress

Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) was born in Missoula, Montana and briefly worked as a social worker in New York and Washington state before joining the women’s suffrage movement and becoming a prominent lobbyist for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. A talented and passionate public speaker, Rankin made over 6,000 speeches around the world in her lifetime, about women’s suffrage, worker’s rights, and peace. After helping Montana women win the vote in 1914, Rankin ran for office in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican in 1916. At age thirty-six, she became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, where she championed legislation to protect children’s rights and women’s rights, including introducing what later became the 19th Amendment, which secured women the right to vote nationwide in 1920. She helped establish the Women’s Peace Party, an American pacifist and feminist organization established to resist U.S. involvement in World War I. She served two non-consecutive congressional terms (1917 to 1919 and 1941 to 1943) and was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both World War I and World War II. She remains the only woman to date elected to the U.S. Congress from the state of Montana.

Interviewees: Nancy C. Unger, Professor of History at Santa Clara University; Congresswoman Deb Haaland, U.S. Representative of New Mexico and one of the first two American Indian women elected to Congress.

Editor’s note: The number of federally recognized Tribes has increased from 573 to 574 since the recording of Representative Deb Haaland’s interview in October 2019.