Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton

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Rebecca Latimer Felton

Rebecca Ann Felton (born Latimer * 10. June 1835 in Decatur , Georgia , † 24. January 1930 in Atlanta , Georgia) was an American politician of the Democratic Party , feminist and racist . As a representative of the state of Georgia, she was the first female member of the US Senate in 1922 .

biography

Early life

Rebecca Ann Latimer was the daughter of the merchant and plantation owner Charles Latimer and his wife Eleanor Swift Latimer. She attended Madison Female College in Madison , which she graduated from the top of the class in 1852. The keynote address at their graduation ceremony was held by a Georgia House representative , William Harrell Felton , a doctor, plantation owner and later Methodist clergyman. In 1853 Rebecca Ann Latimer married Felton, who was twelve years her senior and widowed, and moved with him the following year to his farm near Cartersville in Bartow County , where she worked as a teacher and soon became active as a writer and lecturer. The couple had five children, but only one of them, their son Howard Erwin, survived childhood.

Political career

Rebecca Latimer Felton was involved in agricultural issues and advocated women's suffrage . At the same time, she campaigned for the abstinence movement and was a passionate advocate of racial segregation and white supremacy , who did not shy away from publicly advocating lynching against blacks.

William Felton was a member of the US House of Representatives from 1875 to 1881 . During this time his wife acted as his campaign manager and assistant, revising his speeches and writing newspaper articles for him. After serving as a congressman, Felton was again a member of the House of Representatives of Georgia from 1884 to 1890 and from 1886 to 1892 curator of the University of Georgia .

US Senator

Rebecca Latimer Felton (1922)

After the death of US Senator Thomas E. Watson on September 26, 1922, the regular by-elections to the Senate were scheduled for November 1922. The governor of Georgia, Thomas W. Hardwick , ran for the vacant office of US Senator . The interim senator should be someone who was not competition. Hardwick named Rebecca Latimer Felton a Senator on October 3, 1922. He did this also with regard to the recently passed 19th amendment to the constitution , with which universal women's suffrage was introduced in order to win over women voters. The Senator was initially not sworn in because the Senate had adjourned until after the elections.

To the great surprise, it was not Hardwick who won the by-election on November 21, 1922, but Walter F. George , who now held the office of US Senator. It is thanks to George that Felton, who had been a non-oath senator for the last month and a half, was still allowed to swear the oath as a senator on November 21, 1922, but the office was sworn to George the next day, November 22, 1922 had to leave.

Rebecca Latimer Felton's Senate tenure is noteworthy in four ways:

  1. She was the first woman to ever become a US senator.
  2. Her twenty-four hour tenure as a Senator is the shortest in the history of the United States Senate.
  3. At 87 years of age, she was the oldest person ever to be sworn in as a US Senator.
  4. She and her husband were probably the last slaveholders among the US senators.

Later life and death

Rebecca Latimer Felton settled in Cartersville for the last few years of her life, where she continued to work as a writer and speaker. She died at the age of 94.

Autobiography

In 1919 she wrote a 299-page autobiography describing her childhood and adolescence in Georgia entitled: Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth .

Web links

Commons : Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Felton, Rebecca Ann Latimer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Latimer, Rebecca Ann (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Decatur , Georgia
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1930
Place of death Atlanta , Georgia