Winnifred Sprague Mason Huck

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Winnifred Sprague Mason Huck, c. 1921
Winnifred Sprague Mason Huck, c. 1921

Winnifred Sprague Mason Huck (September 14, 1882August 24, 1936) was an American journalist and politician from the state of Illinois who became the third woman to serve in the United States Congress, after Jeannette Rankin and Alice Mary Robertson, and the first from Illinois. She was elected to fill the seat of her father, Representative-at-large William Ernest Mason, after his death.

Huck was born in Chicago, Illinois, and attended public schools in Chicago and in Washington, D.C. She worked as her father's secretary.

Huck was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-seventh United States Congress by special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her father, and served a partial term from November 7, 1922 to March 3, 1923. Unlike most first-term Representatives, she introduced several bills.

She was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination to the Sixty-eighth Congress in 1922, and an unsuccessful candidate for nomination for a special election (February 27, 1923) to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Representative James Mann. After her term she joined the National Woman's Party.

She later became an investigative journalist, and exposed abuses in the prison system.

Huck died in Chicago, and her ashes were interred in Oakwood Cemetery, in Waukegan, Illinois.

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Preceded by
William E. Mason
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Illinois's At-large congressional district

November 7, 1922March 3, 1923 (obsolete district)
Succeeded by
Henry Riggs Rathbone