Montana never has shied from female representation, electing
Jeannette Rankin as the first female member of Congress even before women gained the right to vote on the national level.
Gretchen Woelfle's beautiful book,
Jeannette Rankin: Political Pioneer (Calkins Creek, 978-1-59078-437-2), does a superb job of telling the story often with Rankin's own words and showing it through photos and document reproductions.
She lived long enough to lend support to a new generation of opponents to the Vietnam war, women who formed "
Jeannette Rankin brigades" in 1968.
In 2000, the Montana American Civil Liberties Union presented him with the "
Jeannette Rankin Civil Liberties Award."
The text was Solutions to Violence, an anthology of essays I put together that included the writings of Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Gene Sharp, Leo Tolstoy,
Jeannette Rankin, Sargent Shriver, Helen Nearing, Barbara Deming, Joan Baez, Daniel Berrigan, Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Michael True, and a long list of others.
Grace Lillian Burke Hubble (1889-1981), wife of the famous astronomer, and
Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), first U.S.
The first woman in the House of Representatives,
Jeannette Rankin of Montana, was asked to speak for "the womanhood of the country" in supporting the war.
Despite severe governmental pressure anti-war leaders such as Eugene Debs, Robert LaFollette,
Jeannette Rankin, and Harry Emerson Fosdick never wavered in demanding that human rights were best served by peace.
ITEM: Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) cast the sole dissenting vote against a resolution authorizing the president to wage war on terrorism, reported the Washington Post, in a story entitled "Congresswoman Against Use of Force." Her vote, claimed the Post on September 19th, "is reminiscent of the first woman ever elected to Congress,
Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who voted against the nation's entry into World War land World II."
What Our Past Can Tell Us:
Jeannette Rankin and Her Life Long Fight for World Peace, Charlotte A.
In the entry on 'Women in Congress', reference is made to the separate entry on the first woman (
Jeannette Rankin) elected to Congress before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote nationwide, includes discussion of 1992, 'the year of the woman', covers the term of the first black woman in Senate (Carol Moseley Braun, Illinois, 1992-8), mentions the first two states to have an all-woman Senate team (California and Maine), and features two of the most interesting victors in 1996, the Hispanic, Loretta Sanchez (California) and Carolyn McCarthy (New York), both of whom stood as Democrats and beat male Republican incumbents.
The entry on music in the West is especially interesting, On the other hand, the one on the women is relatively skimpy, although there are separate entries on women of such variable shades as Cattle Kate (Ella Watson, 18627-1888), madam and cattle rustler and Willa Cather (1873-1947) the author, or Lola Montez (1818-1861) the dancer and
Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) the pacifist congresswoman from Montana.