Currently 142 women serve in Congress.

Today, let’s remember the very first woman to hold federal office in the U.S., Jeanette Rankin, on her birthday. Born June 11, 1880, Jeanette was elected to the House in 1916, she was a strong advocate for women’s rights and helped pass the 19th Amendment.

Her career stretched over 6 decades, during which she championed civil rights alongside gender equality. 

Jeanette supported nonintervention and opposed America’s involvement in both WWI and WWII.

On December 8, 1941, she was the only member of either house of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan, saying, “As a woman I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.”

She received much criticism for her vote, and yet a reporter writing about her decision said,” Probably a hundred men in Congress would have liked to do what she did. Not one of them had the courage to do it.” On January 15, 1968, during the Vietnam War, she led 5,000 women in a march on Washington, D.C. to protest US involvement. Called the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, this inclusive and diverse march included women from different political, social, and religious backgrounds. Coretta Scott King called Jeanette “the endurance symbol of the aspirations of American women—the symbol of the aspirations for peace of millions of us.”

She died at age 92 on May 18, 1973, and bequeathed the entirety of her estate to “mature, unemployed women workers.”

#HistoryMatters #RememberHerName #vote #jeanetterankin #womensrights #civilrights

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