| Jeannette Rankin | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana's 2nd district |
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| In office March 3, 1917 – March 3, 1919 |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana's 1st district |
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| In office January 3, 1941 – January 3, 1943 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | June 11, 1880 Missoula County, Montana |
| Died | May 18, 1973 (aged 92) Carmel, California |
| Political party | Republican |
| Occupation | Social worker, activist |
Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was the first woman in the US Congress. A Republican, she was elected statewide in Montana in 1916 and again in 1940. A lifelong pacifist, she is the only member of Congress to have voted against the entry of the United States into both World War I in 1917 and World War II in 1941, the only member of Congress to vote against the latter. She is the only woman to be elected to Congress from Montana.[1]
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Rankin was born on a ranch near Missoula, Montana Territory, the first of eleven children born to John Rankin, a rancher and builder who had immigrated from Canada, and Olive Pickering, a Yankee who was a former schoolteacher. Her parents were well-to-do and prominent in Montana affairs. Jeannette Rankin never married. She attended the University of Montana and graduated in 1902 with a bachelor of science degree in biology.[2]
On a visit to Boston in 1904 she was horrified at slum conditions and decided to enter social work. She attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later part of Columbia University) in the 1908-1909 school year, and worked in Spokane, Washington. She studied social legislation at the University of Washington, where she became involved in the woman suffrage movement. Agreeing with Jane Addams, Rankin argued that slum conditions were worsened by women's inability to vote. In 1910 she returned to Montana to work for the Montana Equal Franchise Society. She declared that she was suspicious of governmental priorities set without women's voice and argued that voteless women were being taxed without representation, echoing the famous credo from the American Revolution. Rankin was hired as an organizer by the New York Women's Suffrage Party and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). As a field secretary for NAWSA, Rankin directed a suffrage victory in North Dakota in 1913. She quit NAWSA in 1914 to return to Montana to help secure passage of woman suffrage there, which was achieved in 1914.[3]
Her brother Wellington Rankin was a power in the Montana Republican party, and managed her campaign for the party nomination for Congress in 1916 and in the general election.[4] On November 7, 1916 she was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana, becoming the first female member of Congress. The Nineteenth Amendment (which gave women the right to vote everywhere in the United States) was not ratified until 1920; therefore, during Rankin's first term in Congress (1917–1919), many women throughout the country did not have the right to vote, though they did in her home state of Montana. She supported woman's suffrage, child-protection laws, and prohibition. Wellington Rankin was her chief adviser and financial backer.
On April 6, 1917, only a month into her term,[5] the House voted on the resolution to enter World War I. Rankin cast one of 50[6] votes against the resolution, earning her immediate vilification by the press. About her vote, Rankin later said, "I felt the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war she should say it."[7] Suffrage groups canceled her speaking engagements. Despite her vote against entering the war, she devoted herself to selling Liberty Bonds and voted for the military draft.
In 1918, she ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination to represent Montana in the United States Senate. She then ran an independent candidacy, which also failed.[6] Her term as Representative ended early in 1919. For the next two decades, she worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. for various causes.
In 1918, and again in 1919, she introduced legislation to provide state and federal funds for health clinics, midwife education, and visiting nurse programs in an effort to reduce the nation's infant mortality. While serving as a field secretary for the National Consumers' League, she campaigned for legislation to promote maternal and child health care. As a lobbyist, Rankin argued for passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act, an infant and maternal health bill which was the first federal social welfare program created explicitly for women and children. The legislation, however, was not enacted until 1921 and was repealed just eight years later.
She was the founding Vice-President of the American Civil Liberties Union[8] and a founding member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
In 1940, Rankin was again elected to Congress, this time on an anti-war platform. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, she once again voted against entering a World War, the only member of Congress to do so, saying "As a woman, I can't go to war and I refuse to send anyone else." [9] Montana Republican leaders demanded that Rankin change her vote, but she refused. However, she did not vote against declaring war on Germany and Italy following their declaration of war on the U.S. Instead, she voted merely Present.
By 1942, Rankin's antiwar stance had become so unpopular that she did not seek re-election.[6] During the remainder of her life, she traveled to India seven times and was a devotee of Gandhian principles of non-violence and self-determination.
Rankin traveled to India seven times from 1947 to 1971 to study the non-violent civil disobedience methods of Mahatma Gandhi. During the 1950s, she gave lectures and interviews on women's rights, militarism, and disarmament. She also spoke out against the Korean War. Later, Rankin was actively opposed to U.S. military action in the Vietnam War. In 1968 she led a protest demonstration of thousands of women in Washington, D.C. The following year she participated in other antiwar marches in Georgia and South Carolina. Rankin considered running for Congress a final time, but was held back by illness.[10]
Rankin died in Carmel, California at the age of 92 from natural causes. Rankin bequeathed her property in Watkinsville, Georgia to help "mature, unemployed women workers." This was the seed money for the Jeannette Rankin Foundation, a 501(c)(3) (non-profit) organization that gives educational scholarships annually to low income women all across the United States. The organization has built capacity since its single $500 scholarship in 1978 to the 80 $2,000 scholarships it awarded in 2007.[11]
In 1985, a statue of her was placed in the United States Capitol's Statuary Hall.
In 2004, A Single Woman, a play based on the life of Rankin, was produced. A film of the same name was released in 2008.
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Tom Stout |
Member from Montana's 2nd congressional district 1917–1919 |
Succeeded by Carl Riddick |
| Preceded by Jacob Thorkelson |
Member from Montana's 1st congressional district 1941–1943 |
Succeeded by Mike Mansfield |
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