Jeannette+Rankinihh

Jeannette Pickering Rankin was born on June 11, 1880. Rankin studied at the University of Washington in Seattle and became involved in the woman suffrage movement in 1910. Visiting Montana, Rankin became the first woman to speak before the Montana legislature, where she surprised the spectators and legislators alike with her speaking ability. She organized and spoke for the Equal Franchise Society.

Rankin then moved to New York, and continued her work on behalf of women's rights. During these years, she began her lifelong relationship with Katherine Anthony. She went to work for the New York Woman Suffrage Party and in 1912 she became the field secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Rankin and Anthony were among the thousands of suffragists at the 1913 suffrage march in Washington, D.C., before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson.

Rankin returned to Montana to help organize the successful Montana suffrage campaign in 1914. To do so, she gave up her position with the NAWSA.

s war in Europe loomed, Rankin turned her attention to work for peace, and in 1916, ran for one of the two seats in Congress from Montana as a Republican. Her brother served as campaign manager and helped finance the campaign. Jeannette Rankin won, though the papers first reported that she lost the election -- and Jeannette Rankin thus became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, and the first woman elected to a national legislature in any western democracy.