HERO’S OF SUFFERAGE
10
women who changed U.S. politics
By Ryan Poe and Isabel Lohman USA TODAY Network
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fter decades of suffragettes being dismissed, degraded and jailed, women won the constitutional right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. But women’s fight to win elections was just starting. In the 100 years since the amendment, women have shattered glass ceilings at nearly every level of government across the U.S. with the notable exception of president and vice president. And in many cases, they won despite the sexism of their opposition. One of the first women elected in the U.S., Susanna Madora Salter of Argonia, Kansas, had her name added to the ballot by a group of men trying to discredit the local women’s temperance union, according to the University of Kansas Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity. She became the first female mayor. There are thousands of women worthy of being included on a list of those who have made significant contributions to U.S. politics over the past 100 years. Here are 10.
Jeannette Rankin
Soledad Chávez de Chacón
After helping secure the right for women to vote in her home state of Montana in 1914, social worker, pacifist and suffragette Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) set a new goal. Rankin, a progressive Republican who grew up on a ranch in rural Montana, became the first woman elected to Congress in 1916, four years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment and as the U.S. was debating whether to enter World War I, according to her House of Representatives biography. A staunch pacifist, Rankin opposed the war, despite the political pressures — and paid a political cost. A victim of redistricting, Rankin lost a third-party bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 1918 and decided against seeking reelection in 1919. When she returned to the office in 1941-43, Rankin cast the only vote against U.S. involvement in World War II, making her the only representative to vote against both World Wars. When she died at 93 in 1973, she was weighing another congressional run — this time to oppose the Vietnam War. In addition to her pacifism, Rankin worked to advance the rights of women and expand social programs, both in and outside of her time in public office. “She was an ardent suffragist,” said Liette Gidlow, an associate professor of history at Wayne State University and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. “And it’s not necessarily remembered this way these days, but Americans’ feelings about being involved in the first World War were very mixed.”
Two years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Soledad Chávez de Chacón (1890-1936) became the first Hispanic woman elected to a statewide office. Chacón, a widely known suffragette who came from a politically connected family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was reportedly baking a cake when she was surprised with the offer to serve as the Democratic nominee for secretary of state, said Cathleen Cahill, associate history professor at Penn State University and the author of a forthcoming book about the women of color who were part of the suffrage movement. After securing the approval of her husband and father, Chacón accepted the nomination and was elected in a Democratic sweep in 1922 — even though New Mexico was one of the slowest states to embrace women’s voting rights, only amending the state constitution to allow women to hold political office the year before her victory. “She is an important first — as a woman, as a Latina or Hispanic woman, and she’s an early woman in New Mexico who serves in public office,” Cahill said. Chacón added another “first” to her list of achievements in 1924: After the state’s lieutenant governor died unexpectedly and the governor left for the Democratic National Convention in New York, she became the first woman in the U.S. to act as a governor.
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PHOTOS: USA TODAY | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS | WIKIMEDIA
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