Jeannette Rankin was the first woman
elected to Congress when she became a U.S. Representative from Montana in 1916,
having campaigned hard, far and wide in that big state. Her colleagues in the
House applauded her on her first day. On her sixth day in office she, along
with forty-nine other lawmakers, bravely voted “No” to President Woodrow
Wilson’s request for support in entering World War I, a vote consistent with
her lifelong pacifist beliefs but ultimately costing her reelection to a next
term. Her Montana girlhood had called for resourcefulness and hard work; she
also inherited from her father “an easy, cordial way with others” and
independent thinking, personal characteristics she carried with her all her
life. While preparing for a career in social work after graduating from college
in 1902, she became aware of Washington State’s campaign for woman suffrage and
worked tirelessly for the cause. Moving back to Montana, she championed woman suffrage
for the next four years and was rewarded when it passed in her home state in 1914.
After her term in Congress, her years were filled with work for social welfare
and peace. A founder of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom,
she was, by the 1930s, recognized nationally as a pacifist leader, speaking
before Congress and elsewhere. Reelected to the House of Representatives in
1940, she was not the only congresswoman this time, but she was the only person
who voted against the United States’ entry into World War II after the bombing
of Pearl Harbor. In the years following, Rankin traveled widely, mostly to
India as she studied closely the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1968 she
mobilized women’s peace groups to march in Washington, D.C., as the Jeannette
Rankin Peace Brigade in opposition to the Vietnam War, the largest march by
women since the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913. Said Rankin: “Wouldn’t it be too
bad if we left this world and hadn’t done all we could for peace?” Her statue
stands in the U.S. Capitol inscribed with the words: “I cannot vote for war.”
Mary Barmeyer O’Brien’s biography Jeannette Rankin: Bright Star in the Big
Sky, with a forward by Montana First Lady Lisa Bullock, is amply
illustrated with archival photos and is a fine introduction to a principled
woman. Ages 9 to adult.
