In the
WOMEN category, team
Historyectomy is very proud to select, and introduce you to (except for Montana Moe) the Daughter of Montana,
Jeannette Rankin.
Rankin was born in Missoula, MT in 1880. She did many awesome things in her life.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about her is that she was the first woman elected to Congress in the US. This happened in 1916 and happened before women had the right to vote. Wow.
Her first vote in Congress was to vote against joining WWI. She served only one term and did not see reelection. She was elected to Congress, however, again in 1941 and promptly voted against joining WWII. She was the lone vote against.
The famous newspaperman William Allen White wrote this about that vote .....
"Rudyard Kipling coined the phrase: 'The female of the species is more deadly that the male.' Well – look at Jeannette Rankin. Probably a hundred men in Congress would have liked to do what she did. Not one of them had the courage to do it. The Gazette entirely disagrees with the wisdom of her position. But, Lord, it was a brave thing! And its bravery some way discounted its folly.
"When, a hundred years from now, courage, sheer courage based upon moral indignation, is celebrated in this country, the name of Jeannette Rankin, who stood firm in folly for her faith, will be written in monumental bronze – not for what she did but for the way she did it."
Rankin was a leading voice in the suffrage movement, for obvious reasons. She did other little things like....
- Founding vice-President of the ACLU
- Founding member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
- At the age of 88 she led a march of 5000 women on Washington protesting the Vietnam war. They named themseleves the Jeannette Rankin brigade and boasted Coretta Scott King among their ranks.
- Upon her death created the Jeannette Rankin Foundation which has grown from 1 $500 scholarship to 80 $2000 scholarships per year for low income women.
