Jeannette Rankin

June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973

Suffragist leader, first woman in Congress, life-long pacifist, advocate for more open and direct democracy, Jeannette Rankin became and remains an inspiration for upward-bound members of her sex. Remembered in the public mind more often for her anguished votes against United States entry into both World Wars, Miss Rankin’s legacy transcends her courageous stands of 1917 and 1941.

Trained as a social worker, Miss Rankin’s early settlement house work convinced her that the solutions to human problems – particularly those of the poor women who were her clients – lay in the political arena.  The needs of these women would only be met when they held the power of the ballot; so Miss Rankin devoted her efforts to the Women’s Suffrage Movement.  In addition to extensive nationwide involvement, she led the successful drive for women’s voting rights in her home state of Montana in 1913 and 1914.

Jeannette Rankin’s 1916 campaign for the United States House of Representatives stressed the need for a woman’s viewpoint in Washington.  And the viewpoint of the woman from Missoula proved to be compelling to the Montana voters who sent Jeannette Rankin to Congress on a high progressive platform for social and political reform: pledges to work for national woman suffrage, child welfare legislation, tariff revisions, prohibition, education issues, an absentee voter law, a corrupt practices act, direct popular election of the President, the “one man – one vote” principle, and greater publicity of the activities of Congressional committees.  She kept her promise to work for these issues and a number of the bills Miss Rankin introduced broke ground for measures adopted in subsequent decades.

Jeannette Rankin was first called upon, however, to vote her conscience against United States entry into World War I.  The House vote was 373 ayes to 50 nays.  Miss Rankin’s was perhaps the most controversial of the votes against the war.  Because of her prominent role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, Miss Rankin was heavily lobbied by other suffragists who felt that if she voted against the war such an action would hinder the movement’s chances.  But the heroic pacifist always took pride in the fact that the first expression of a woman in Congress was against violence as a tool to resolve conflict.

And from that April day in 1917 until the end of her life in 1973, Jeannette Rankin kept on saying “NO” to war.

Miss Rankin’s district in Montana was gerrymandered away and she lost a 1918 bid for the Senate. Returning to “private” life, she continued to work for social legislation, especially through the National Consumers’ League. Then, in 1925, she purchased a farm near Athens, Georgia, to serve as her east coast home base. She soon became an activist in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, helped to organize the Georgia Peace Society, and became a field representative of the Women’s Peace Union.  From 1929 to 1939, Miss Rankin served as a lobbyist for the National Council for Prevention of War.

Watching the pressures again build toward war, Jeannette Rankin decided to run for a second term to Congress in 1940.  She was elected on a pacifist platform and determined not to seek reelection to public office if the United States declared war during her term.  Following the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, the Congress did declare war and Jeannette Rankin found herself again in a minority – this time of one – voting against United States entry into World War II. Though vilified and ridiculed, she never regretted her vote.  John F. Kennedy said of her in a 1958 article:  “Few members of Congress have ever stood more alone while being true to a higher honor and loyalty.”

In keeping with her prior conviction (and no doubt political reality), Miss Rankin did not again seek public office. During the 1940s and 1950s she devoted herself to the care of her elderly mother, private study and correspondence, writing and travel, spending time in Georgia and Montana as well as abroad.

But in the 1960s the Vietnam War finally brought Jeannette Rankin back into the public arena to speak – always consistently – against war.  “The Grand Old Lady” of the Peace Movement took her message against war to podiums all over the country.  On January 15, 1968, several thousand women joined the “Jeannette Rankin Brigade” to dramatize their war protests in the nation’s capital.

True to form, Miss Rankin used the publicity attending her reemergence as elder stateswoman for Pacifism to call attention to her collateral concerns for other political and social reforms.  Her proposal for direct election of the president, preferential voting methods, and her fifty-year commitment for “sunshine legislation” found a new generation of proponents.  A sage observer as well as participant in nine decades of feminism, Jeannette Rankin commented in 1970 on the “new" women’s movement: "…men are not the enemy. It is woman’s responsibility to free herself, and she has not accepted that responsibility."

Jeannette Rankin died quietly in her apartment in Carmel, California, at the age of 92.  She bequeathed a part of her estate in Watkinsville, Georgia, to be used to assist “Mature women workers” in their quest for independence.  Her long-held dream of developing the famed “Round House” as a self-sufficient home and center for such purposes had not materialized during her lifetime.  But through her bequest, she has made it possible for the Jeannette Rankin Foundation to carry on this dream as a living memorial to the great lady whose courage and vision continue to inspire us as individuals and a nation in realizing our potential.

-Gail Dendy

Jeannette Rankin Foundation co-founder

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