On January 12, 1932 – Hattie Caraway became the First Woman Elected to the US Senate!!
On this day, January 12th in 1932 Hattie Caraway became the first woman elected to the United States Senate!! Caraway was the wife of Arkansas politician Thaddeus Caraway. Her husband was elected to the House of Representatives in 1912 and served as a Representative until 1921,. He became a Senator in that year and served in that capacity until he died in office in 1931. It had been a precedent at that time that the widows were appointed to temporarily take their husbands positions. Following that precedent Governor Harvey Parnell appointed Hattie Caraway to the vacant seat and she was sworn in to office on December 9th of 1931. Caraway with the backing of the Arkansas Democratic party easily won the special election held in 1932 for the remaining months of the term and became the first women elected to the Senate!
But that was not the end of Hattie Caraway’s political career. In May of 1932 she surprised Arkansas politicians by announcing that she would run for a full term in the upcoming election.. from Wikipedia….
… She told reporters, “The time has passed when a woman should be placed in a position and kept there only while someone else is being groomed for the job.” When she was invited by Vice President Charles Curtis to preside over the Senate she took advantage of the situation to announce that she would run for reelection. Populist Louisiana politician Huey Long travelled to Arkansas on a 9-day campaign swing to campaign for her. She was the first female Senator to preside over this body as well as the first to chair a Committee (Senate Committee on Enrolled Bills).[4] Lacking any significant political backing, Caraway accepted the offer of help from Long, whose efforts to limit incomes and increase aid to the poor she had supported. Long was also motivated by sympathy for the widow as well as by his ambition to extend his influence into the home state of his rival, Senator Joseph Robinson. Bringing his colorful and flamboyant campaign style to Arkansas, Long stumped the state with Caraway for a week just before the Democratic primary, helping her amass nearly twice as many votes as her closest opponent. She went on to win the general election in November. Read More
I must admit that I really didn’t know about Hattie Caraway until I read about her today, It’s an amazing achievement for Hattie considering that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting women’s suffrage was not ratified until August 18, 1920!!
It is also interesting to note that on this day in history in 1915 the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.!!
Anyway, Way to go Hattie!!!