The Legacy of Jeanette Rankin: First Woman in Congress and Peace Advocate

       

Jeannette Rankin was an American politician and women’s rights advocate who became the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S house of representatives as a republican from Montana in 1916 for one term, then was elected again in 1940. Rankin remains the only woman elected to congress from Montana.

Rankin was born on June 11th 1880, in Montana to school teacher Olive and John Rankin. She was the eldest of six children, including five sisters and a brother, Wellington, who became a justice on the Montana supreme court. 

Rankin graduated from high school in 1898. She studied at the University of Montana and, in 1902, received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. At the age of 27, Rankin moved to San Fransisco to take a job in social work, a new and developing field. Confident that she had found her new calling, she enrolled in the New York school of Philanthropy from 1908 to 1909. She moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington voters approved an amendment to their state constitution to permanently enfranchise women, the fifth state in the union to do so. She became an organizer of the New York woman Suffrage Party, which joined with other organizations to promote a similar suffrage bill in that state’s legislature. 

Rankin returned to Montana and rose through the ranks and became president of the Montana Women’s suffrage Association and the national field secretary of NAWSA. In February 1911, she became the first woman to speak before the Montana legislature, arguing in support of enfranchisement for women in her home state. In November 1914, Montana became the seventh state to grant women unrestricted voting rights. Ranking coordinated the efforts of a variety of grassroots organizations to promote her suffrage campaigns in New York and Montana. 

Rankin later compared her work in the women’s suffrage movement to promoting the pacifc foreign policy that defined her congressional career. She believed, as did many suffragists of the period, that the corruption and dysfunction of the United States government resulted from lack of women’s participation. At a disarmament conference during the interwar period, she said, “The peace problem is a women’s problem.”

Rankin campaigned for the Montana’s two at-large house seats in the congressional election of 1916 financed by her brother Wellington, an influential member of the Montana Republican party. She traveled long distances to reach the state’s widely scattered population, strategizing her rally support at train stations, street corners, potluck suppers on ranches , and remote schoolhouses, emphasizing her support of suffrage, social welfare, prohibition.

The large general election on November 7th, the top two vote-getters won the seats. Rankin finished second defeating Frank Bird Linderman, among others, to become the first woman elected in congress. In her speech, she said, “I am deeply conscious of the responsibility resting upon me” as the only woman in the nation with voting power in congress.

On April 2nd,1917, President Woodrow Wilson, addressed the congress to “make the world safe for democracy” by declaring war on Germany. The war resolution came to a vote in the house at 3.00 am on April 6; Ranking having voted against the war of the 50 votes that had been casted.

Rankin used her office to push for better working conditions for laborers. On June 8th 1917, the spectacular mine disaster in butte left 168 miners dead. Workers called a massive protest strike over working conditions. Rankin tried to intervene, but mining companies refused to meet with her or the miners, and her proposed legislation to end the strike was unsuccessful. She had greater success pushing for better working conditions in the bureau of engraving and printing. Rankin hired investigative reporter Elizabeth Watson to investigate the grievances of the federal workers. As a result of her efforts to draw attention to the working conditions of the bureau, Treasury Secretary William McAdoo ultimately limited the work day to eight hours.

She was instrumental in the creation of the committee on woman suffrage and became one of its founding members. In January 1918, she delivered a report to congress and opened a debate on a constitutional amendment granting universal suffrage to women. The resolution passed in the house but was defeated by the senate. The following year, after Rankin’s term the proposal was passed in both chambers, becoming the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.

After leaving congress, Rankin worked as a field secretary for the National Consumers League and as a lobbyist for various pacifist organizations. She argued for the passage of a constitutional amendment banning child labor and supported the Sheppard-Towner Act, the first federal social welfare program created explicitly for women and children. The legislation was enacted in 1921 but repealed eight years later, though many of its key provisions were incorporated into the Social Security Act of 1935.

Rankin began her campaign for congress in 1939 with a tour of high schools in Montana. She arranged to speak to 52 of the first congressional districts 56 high schools to reestablish her ties to the region after years of spending much of her time in Georgia where she had bought a piece of land for herself. In 1940 Ranking at the age of 60 defeated incumbent Jacob Thorkelson, an outspoken antisemite, in the July primary and former Representative Jerry J. O’Connell in the general election. She was appointed to the committee of Public Lands and the Committee on the Insular Affairs. 

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941, galvanized the country and silenced virtually all opposition against World War2. On December 8th, Ranking was the only member of either chamber of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan. She refused saying, “As a woman, I can’t go to war and I refuse to send anyone else.” Three days later a similar declaration against Germany and Italy came to a vote; Rankin abstained. With her political career effectively over, she did not run for reelection in 1942. John F. Kennedy would write about Rankin’s decisions, “Few members of congress have ever stood more alone while being true to a higher honor and loyalty.”

Ranking died in May, 1973, at age 92, in Carmel, California. She bequeathed her estate, including the property in Georgia, to help mature, unemployed women workers.  The Jeannette Rankin foundation, a nonprofit organization, awards annual educational scholarships to low-income women 35 and older across the United States beginning with $500 scholarship in 1978, the fund has since awarded more than $1.8 million in scholarships to more than 700 women.

By: Stephen