Jeannette Rankin

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Jeannette Rankin
Jeannette Rankin, 1917

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (born June 11, 1880 in Missoula County , Montana Territory , †  May 18, 1973 in Carmel , California ) was an American politician , suffragette and peace activist. She was the first woman to be elected to the United States Congress and House of Representatives there.

biography

Jeannette Rankin was born to the rancher John Rankin and the school teacher Olive Pickering Rankin. She was the oldest of seven children. After graduating from the University of Montana with a degree in biology , she moved to New York City in 1908 , where she worked as a social worker. She later moved to Seattle , Washington state and enrolled at the University of Washington , where she joined the women's rights movement. She played an important role in equality and in the fight for the right of women to vote in Montana , which was realized on November 7, 1914.

In 1916 she was elected to the US House of Representatives as the Republican MP for Montana and took her seat on March 4, 1917. As a republican and pacifist , she voted with other 56 MPs against entry into the war against Germany in the First World War . In 1918 she led an unsuccessful election campaign for a seat in the US Senate .

In 1924 Rankin bought a small farm in Georgia , where she lived a simple life with no water or electricity. It was her retreat and mainstay between the many lecture tours in the 1920s and 1930s and her participation in the campaigns of various organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union , the National Council for the Prevention of War and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom , as well as working in their national offices in Washington, DC She became known as "America's conscience".

In 1940 Rankin was re-elected to Congress. After the attack on Pearl Harbor , she was the only MP to vote against the declaration of war on Japan , saying: "As a woman I cannot go to war and I refuse to send anyone else there." After her vote against entering the war, one wrote Newspaper in Kansas : “If one were to celebrate Courage, Pure Courage in this country in a hundred years, one would write the name of Jeannette Rankin in the bronze of a monument.” One such bronze monument is today in the statue hall of the Capitol in Washington, another in the Capitol of the state of Montana in its capital Helena .

She no longer ran for re-election to Congress. In later life, she traveled to India several times and met like-minded pacifists such as Mahatma Gandhi . Her commitment has always been to the peace and civil rights policy of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others.

In 1968 she led the so-called "The Jeannette Rankin Brigade" with more than 5000 women, which demonstrated against the Vietnam War at the Capitol .

literature

  • Norma Smith: Jeannette Rankin, America's Conscience . Montana Historical Society Press, Helena (Mont.) 2002, ISBN 0-917298-79-9 .

Web links

Commons : Jeannette Rankin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Norma Smith: Jeannette Rankin. America's Conscience . Montana Historical Society Press, Helena (Mont.) 2002, p. 114.
  2. ^ Norma Smith: Jeannette Rankin. America's Conscience . Montana Historical Society Press, Helena (Mont.) 2002, chap. 11: Peace Activist .
  3. ^ Norma Smith: Jeannette Rankin. America's Conscience . Montana Historical Society Press, Helena (Mont.) 2002, p. 185.
personal data
SURNAME Rankin, Jeannette
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rankin, Jeannette Pickering (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician, suffragette and peace activist
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Missoula County , Montana Territory
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1973
Place of death Carmel , California