Jeannette Rankin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Jeannette Rankin | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana's At-large district |
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| In office March 4, 1917 – March 3, 1919 |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana's 1st district |
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| In office January 3, 1941 – January 3, 1943 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | Jeannette Pickering Rankin June 11, 1880 Missoula County, Montana |
| Died | May 18, 1973 (aged 92) Carmel, California |
| Political party | Republican |
| Alma mater | University of Montana University of Washington |
| Occupation | Social worker, activist, Congresswoman |
Rankin's two terms in Congress coincided with U.S. entry into both world wars. A lifelong pacifist, she was one of fifty members of Congress who voted against entry into World War I in 1917, and the only member of Congress who voted against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.[1]
Contents
Biography
Early life and suffrage movement
Rankin was born on June 11, 1880 near Missoula, Montana, to schoolteacher Olive Pickering Rankin and Canadian immigrant, carpenter, and rancher John Rankin.[1] She was the oldest of six children including five girls, one of whom died in childhood. As a child, Rankin gained a reputation for doing things most other girls didn't. She often helped ranch hands with machinery, and once single-handedly built a sidewalk to help her father rent a building.[2]She graduated from high school in 1898, and in 1902 graduated from the University of Montana with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. Undecided about what to do next, Rankin tried dressmaking and furniture design but neither suited her. She also turned down several marriage proposals.[2]
Rankin attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later part of Columbia University) from 1908 to 1909, then moved to Spokane. After briefly serving as a social worker she attended the University of Washington and became involved in the women's suffrage movement. She became an organizer for the New York Women's Suffrage Party and a lobbyist for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), facilitating suffrage victories in both Washington and Montana.[1]
Rankin later compared her work in the women's suffrage movement to the pacifist foreign policy that defined her Congressional career. She believed, with many suffragists of the period, that the corruption and dysfunction of the United States government was a result of a lack of feminine participation. As she said at a disarmament conference in the interwar period, “The peace problem is a woman’s problem."[3]
First Congressional term
Rankin's first campaign for the Congressional election of 1916 was financed and managed by her brother Wellington D. Rankin, a power in the Montana Republican Party. The campaign involved traveling long distances to reach the large state's scattered population. Rankin rallied support at train stations, street corners, potluck suppers on ranches, and remote one-room schoolhouses. Rankin won by over 7,500 votes.[2]On November 7 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]
On June 8, 1917 the Speculator Mine disaster in Butte left 168 miners dead and a massive protest strike over working conditions ensued. Rankin intervened, but mining companies refused to meet with her or the miners and proposed legislation was unsuccessful.[4]
During Rankin's first term, Montana legislature restructured its voting districts and she found herself in an overwhelmingly Democratic one. She decided to run for the U.S. Senate and finished second in the Republican primary. She campaigned on a third-party ticket and finished a disappointing third.[4]
Between terms
In 1919 Rankin bought property in Georgia, where she organized social clubs for children, formed the Georgia Peace Society, and gave lectures on pacifism.[2]She also worked as a field secretary for the National Consumers League and as a lobbyist for the National Council for the Prevention of War. She argued for the passage of a constitutional amendment banning child labor and the Sheppard-Towner Act, the first federal social welfare program created explicitly for women and children.[1] The legislation was enacted in 1921 but repealed just eight years later.[5]
Second Congressional term
Rankin was elected to Congress again in 1940, defeating incumbent Republican representative Jacob Thorkelson, an outspoken anti-Semite. She was appointed to the Committee on Public Lands and the Committee on Insular Affairs. World War II was raging in Europe, and another debate on U.S. involvement had broken out.[4]Rankin was the only member of Congress to vote against entering WWII following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Hisses could be heard from the gallery when Rankin cast the vote and several colleagues asked her to change it to make the war declaration unanimous, but she refused.[6] "As a woman I can't go to war," she said, "and I refuse to send anyone else." After the vote an angry mob followed her, and she was forced to hide in a telephone booth and call congressional police to rescue her.[2]
Life after Congress
Over the next twenty years Rankin traveled the world, frequently visiting India, where she studied the pacifist teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.[2]In the 1960s and 1970s new waves of pacifists, feminists, and civil rights advocates idolized Rankin and embraced her efforts in ways that her generation didn't. U.S. involvement in Vietnam mobilized her once again. In January 1968 she established the Jeannette Rankin Brigade and led five thousand marchers in Washington, D.C. to protest the war, culminating in the presentation of a peace petition to House Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts.[1]
Death and legacy
Rankin died of natural causes on May 18, 1973 in Carmel, California. She had been considering another run for a House seat to protest the Vietnam War.[1]She bequeathed her property in Watkinsville, Georgia to help "mature, unemployed women workers." The Jeannette Rankin Foundation (later named The Jeannette Rankin Women's Scholarship Fund), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, annually gives educational scholarships to low-income women 35 and older across the United States. In 1978 the Foundation awarded one scholarship in the amount of $500, and has since built capacity and awarded more than $1.8 million in scholarships to more than 700 women. In 2012 the organization awarded 85 scholarships in the amount of $2,000 each.[7]
A statue of Rankin was placed in the United States Capitol's Statuary Hall in 1985. At the dedication, historian Joan Hoff-Wilson called her "one of the most controversial and unique women in Montana and American political history.[6] A replica stands in Montana's capitol, and the words "I Cannot Vote For War" are carved into the bases of both.[2]
In popular culture
In 2004 peace activist Jeanmarie Simpson produced a play entitled A Single Woman, based on the life of Rankin. Simpson baked bread during her performances, to be eaten by audiences in the final scene. The play was presented 263 times in two years, both in the U.S. and abroad, to benefit peace organizations and movements including the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Friends Service Committee.[8]Simpson then wrote and starred in a film about Rankin's life, also called A Single Woman. The film was directed and produced by Kamala Lopez, narrated by Martin Sheen, and featured music by Joni Mitchell.[9] It was screened in 2008 at the Santa Fe Film Festival.[10]
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