March 4, 1917 – Jeannette Rankin becomes first Woman to take a seat in US House of Representatives
Rankin's brother Wellington, a power in the Montana Republican Party, financed and helped manage her first campaign for the Congressional election of 1916. The campaign involved traveling long distances to reach the large state's scattered population. Rankin rallied support at train stations, street corners, potluck suppers, and one-room schoolhouses. On the evening of the election, the Missoula daily newspaper reported her as having almost certainly lost. But results continued to trickle in over the next several days, and Rankin won by over 7,500 votes.[2]
On November 7th she was elected to Montana's at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first female member of Congress.[1] During her term in the 65th Congress women did not have universal suffrage, but many were voting in some form in about forty states, including Montana. "If I am remembered for no other act," Rankin said, "I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote."[2]
Just after her term began the House held a vote on whether to enter World War I. Rankin cast one of fifty votes against the resolution, later saying, "I felt the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war she should say it." Some considered Rankin's vote to be a discredit to the suffragist movement and to Rankin's authority in Congress. But others, including Alice Paul of the National Woman's Party and Representative Fiorello LaGuardia of New York, applauded it.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannette_Rankin
