Even before the Constitutional Amendment granting women’s suffrage, Jeanette Rankin was elected to Congress. From Montana.
A Foot in Two Centuries
Jeanette Rankin was born in 1880 in Missoula, MT. It was still the Wild West. There were less than 40,000 settlers in the entire (very large) territory. It did not achieve statehood for another decade.
The Rankins were a prosperous family, Jeanette being the eldest of six siblings – but only one brother. She was raised as a pioneer woman. She cleaned and sewed, cooked and did farm chores, and helped raise the younger children. She also became familiar with the farm machinery, and even built a wooden sidewalk by herself, so her family could rent out a house they owned. And…she was sent to school, and excelled.
But by the mid 1890s, once Montana became the 41st state, Jeanette was old enough to realize that while pioneer women were valued – and expected to contribute side by side with their menfolk to the harsh life required, they were not permitted to have a say in the running of political affairs.
But she went on to a college education, earning a degree in biology from the University of Montana, and explored various career options. After helping to raise her younger siblings after her father died, she moved to San Francisco (for better opportunities), and found a position in a brand new and growing field: social work. She had discovered her true calling – and the doors were thrown wide open for her.
She went to New York City and enrolled for a year in the NY School of Philanthropy (now Columbia University’s School of Social Work). She worked briefly in Spokane, and then went on to study further at the University of Washington in Seattle.
It was 1909. Theodore Roosevelt had just pulled the country into the 20th century. Jeanette was nearly thirty, strong, smart, energetic, and ready to join the new cadre of friends she was making in the Women’s Suffrage movement.
The Suffragist
With her worthy background, Jeanette Rankin became a leader in the Women’s Suffrage movement, first (briefly) in Seattle, when Washington State became the 5th state to permit women to vote. Then, perhaps due to her time and education in New York, was sent back to the Big Apple to organize their movement.
She was not a loud or forceful woman, i.e. the type to chain herself to fences, or dare authorities to send her to jail. Rather, she organized her own thoughts and concepts extremely well, and her oral delivery was compelling. Women’s suffrage had become her passion, but it was as much intellectual as it was emotional.
By 1911, she had returned to Montana, where she was becoming well known and admired, and helped that state in its quest for women’s suffrage. She became the first woman to address the Montana State Legislature. Her arguments were strong. In 1914, Montana granted women the right to vote; the 10th state to do so.
The Congresswoman
It is only a small step between the right to vote, and the right to hold office. Ms. Rankin firmly believed that the problems of corruption and dysfunction in the US government was due in considerable part to the lack of women’s influence in its governing bodies.
With the strong encouragement and financial help from her brother Wellington, who had become a leader in Montana’s Republican Party, Jeanette decided to run for an at-large seat in the US Congress – on the Republican ticket.
She plied all her energies into the campaign, traveling through the third largest (at that time) state in the Union. She drove her car hundreds of miles, made hundreds of speeches on various issues, shook thousands of hands, and proved her competence and dedication to Montana (and the country’s) greater good.
She came in second in a field of eight candidates, and won a seat in 1916.
She was the first Congresswoman – and the only one elected even before the Constitutional Amendment granting women the right to vote was formally ratified.
The Pacifist
When Jeanette Rankin was elected in late 1916, the Democrats (she was a “progressive” Republican) won the election because President Woodrow Wilson “kept them out of war.” He had been an ardent believer in keeping the USA neutral in the Great War that was toppling empires abroad – and claiming literally millions of lives. The country, as a whole, supported neutrality; after all George Washington himself cautioned posterity against involvement in conflicts that did not concern us. At the same time, the country as a whole also supported preparedness, including military preparedness, as a deterrent. It was a complicated and complex situation.
But European events, particularly Germany’s continued U-Boat aggression on the high seas, was conspiring against the USA’s “better angels.” The Zimmerman letter, dangling bait for Mexico to enter the War allied to Germany, was the last straw.
Congresswoman Rankin’s women’s suffrage priorities were forced to shift. In her own phrase, “I wish to stand for my country, but I cannot vote for war.” It was a hard choice, and years later she added that “the first time a woman had the chance to say ‘no’ to war, she should say it.”
She was not alone. Fifty Congressmen – and a few Senators of both parties also voted against the declaration of war. But as the first Woman in Congress, she was singled out for particular notoriety. She was not re-elected. But she would be heard from again. And again.
By the time her term ended, however, a constitutional amendment to allow women to vote had passed both Houses of Congress and was well on its way to passage and ratification.
She was the only woman to actually vote for the 19th Constitutional Amendment.
Sources:
Englund, Will – March 1917: On the Brink of War and Revolution – W.W. Norton, 2017
Smith, Norma – Jeanette Rankin, America’s Conscience – Montana Historical Society Press, 2002
https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/directory/jeannette-rankin
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