Jeannette Rankin can only be classified as a “free spirit.” Growing up in Missoula, Montana, the oldest of eleven children, Rankin graduated from Montana State University in 1902 with a degree in biology. She was a schoolteacher, a seamstress and even studied furniture design. But none of these occupations held her interest for long.
While visiting her brother in Boston, Rankin noticed the slum conditions and entered the new field of social work. She was a resident of a Settlement House in San Francisco and then attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later the Columbia School of Social Work). She spent a few weeks working at a children’s home in Spokane, Washington as a social worker. Again, however, the field of social work did not hold her interest for long.
Women’s Suffrage
She attended the University of Washington in Seattle where she did discover something which held her interest: women’s suffrage. Rankin went to work for the New York Suffrage Party and eventually became secretary for the National American Women Suffrage Association. Rankin participated, along with thousands of other women, on the march for suffrage in 1913.
Rankin eventually returned to Montana where she helped organize the suffrage campaign there. Women in Montana won the right to vote in 1914.
Still working towards women’s suffrage on a national level, Rankin began also working towards peace. War was an eminent threat in 1914 and Rankin was determined to do her part.
Election to Congress
In 1916, Rankin ran as a Republican for one of two seats in Congress from Montana. Her brother helped finance the campaign as well as being her manager. Rankin won the election, becoming the first woman elected to Congress and the first woman elected to a national legislature in western democracy. She is also, to date, the only woman elected to Congress from the state of Montana.
Within four days of being in her new office, Rankin again made history: she voted against U.S. entry into World War I. Although her anti-war stance hurt her later chances of a career in politics, Rankin announced during roll call, “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war.”[1] This decision also earned her criticism from key members of the women’s suffrage movement.
Ironically, although Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, most American women did not yet have the right to vote in 1916. Rankin’s home state of Montana was one of only a very few states in the union which had ratified the women’s right to vote.
Even though Rankin voted against U.S. involvement in World War I, Rankin nevertheless supported the U.S. once the decision was made. She voted for several pro-war measures later in her term while she continued working for political reforms such as suffrage, civil liberties, birth control, equal pay and child welfare. She introduced legislation to provide funds at both the federal and state levels for health clinics, midwife education and visiting nurse programs.
Once Rankin’s term was over, so was her political career for the time being. She attempted to run for the Senate and lost.
Working for Peace
Not one to be deterred, Rankin turned her attention back to working for peace. She joined the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the National Consumers’ League and joined the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Rankin then moved to a farm in Georgia, returning to Montana every summer. In Georgia, she set up a base for the WILPF, lobbying for peace. She formed the Georgia Peace Society and lobbied for the Women’s Peace Union. After leaving the Peace Union, she joined the National Council for the Prevention of War.
By 1937, Rankin realized that lobbying for peace may not be the best way to achieve it. She toured ten states giving 93 speeches for peace. But by 1939, another war was looming on the horizon. Rankin returned to her home state of Montana in 1940 and once again ran for Congress.
Rankin won the seat a second time, but, just as before, she voted against U.S. involvement in World War II, even after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was the only member of Congress who voted against entering WWII, but she justified her decision by stating, “As a woman, I can't go to war and I refuse to send anyone else. It is not necessary. I vote NO.”[2]
This time, her anti-war stance made Rankin so unpopular that a further career in politics was futile.
The Jeannette Rankin Brigade
Rankin was an admirer of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1968, she led 5,000 women, known as “The Jeannette Rankin Brigade,” to the anti-Vietnam War demonstration at the U.S. Capitol.
The Jeannette Rankin Foundation
Upon her death, Rankin left her property in Watkinsville, Georgia to help mature, unemployed women workers. This provided seed money for the Jeannette Rankin Foundation, a 501(c)(3) which gives scholarships to low income women. It has grown from a single $500 award in 1978 to eighty $2000 scholarships awarded in 2007.
A statue of Jeannette Rankin was placed in the Capitol’s Statutory Hall in 1985. The Jeannette Rankin Peace Center was established in Rankin’s hometown of Missoula, Montana. Rankin was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993.
In 2004, a play, “A Single Woman” was produced based on the life of Rankin. A movie of the same name was produced in 2008. Also in 2004, Allyson Adams, independent filmmaker and actress, produced “Peace Is A Woman’s Job” a 51-minute docu-drama about the life of Jeannette Rankin.
Sources:
National Women's Hall of Fame
Women in Congress
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