Jeannette Rankin 1880-1973
Jeannette Rankin was born on June 11, 1880, in the Montana territory at the Grant Creek Ranch near Missoula. She was the oldest of 6. Her father, John Rankin, a Canadian immigrant, and her mother, Olive Rankin, both came to Montana in search of gold.
When Jeannette was a child, she worked on her parent's farm building and maintaining mechanical things including tractors. After graduating from high school, she went on to the University of Montana, where she got her bachelor's degree. After completing college, she went to the University of Washington, where she got involved in the suffrage movement. The definition of suffrage is “the write to vote” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. After that, she moved to New York and helped organize the Women's Suffrage Movement, which spanned from 1849 (thirty-one years before she was born) to 1920, when the Senate passed the nineteenth amendment, which states “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex”.
On April 2, 1917, Jeannette was voted into the United States House of Representatives, she was 37. This was a major event in history because she was the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress. On April 2, President Woodrow Wilson spoke to the House and Senate about entering World War One. There was a vote, and Jeannette was one of fifty Representatives to vote against entering the war against Germany. She is quoted as saying “I wish to stand for my country, but I can not vote for war” and also “As a woman, I can not go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else”. As a result of this fateful vote, Jeannette knew she would not be reelected to the House of Representatives. She instead decided that it would be smart to run for the Senate. Jeannette lost the Republican primary by only a few votes, she didn’t give up, she ran for the same seat in the general election but lost again.
After losing her seat in Congress, Jeannette moved to a small town in Georgia, where she farmed for a few years. During this time she was still a huge advocate for women's rights and started the Georgia Peace Society which lasted from 1931-1937.
Jeannette Rankin never married, despite the fact that she was urged to by many family members who thought that she might be more proper if she was married. She was also proposed to in public by complete strangers, similar to the way that celebrities now will get proposed to. She refused all of these and went on with her life.
In 1940, Jeannette Rankin was reelected to the House of Representatives. She ran on an anti-war platform, pushing against World War Two. Instead of harming her chances like it did when she voted against World War One, it instead helped her to win. When the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the House and Senate about entering the war Jeannette was left in a similar state as before; if she voted against the war, she would probably lose her seat, if she voted for it, she would be against her own morals. In the end, Jeannette decided to vote against it, she was the only Representative out of 435 Representatives. She was voted out of the seat at the next election.
Jeannette Rankin died in 1973 on May 18, in Carmel, California, she was 92. At the time of her death she was considering running for Congress again to protest the Vietnam War. There is a memorial stone standing for her in the Missoula cemetery near the place she was born. There is also an award named after her called the Jeannette Rankin Civil Liberties Award which is given to people and organizations who demonstrate strength of character.
Jeannette Rankin was a Republican anti-war suffragist who impacted all women in office today. If she hadn’t been elected, who knows when women would have been in Congress.
On this day, Jeannette Rankin’s history-making moment | Constitution Center
Rankin Awards | ACLU of Montana
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