7 Female Firsts in U.S. Politics

Fifty years before women throughout the United States achieved the right to vote, Victoria Woodhull—stockbroker, newspaper publisher, and champion of social reform—declared her candidacy for president. Despite the fact that she had a reputation as an eccentric (she was once a traveling fortune teller), Woodhull’s outspoken support of female suffrage earned her national attention and the 1872 presidential nomination of the short-lived Equal Rights Party. She did not, however, receive any electoral votes; the contest was won by the incumbent, Ulysses S. Grant. Notable women who followed Woodhull as presidential candidates include Belva Lockwood, Margaret Chase Smith, and Shirley Chisholm.

As legislative secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Jeannette Rankin helped gain women in her native Montana the right to vote in 1914 (well before the Nineteenth Amendment). Her efforts were rewarded two years later when Montanans elected her to the U.S. House of Representatives. Although Rankin’s tenure was brief—she served only two terms (1917–19 and 1941–43)—her congressional legacy isn’t defined solely by her role as a pioneer for women. A lifelong pacifist, she also holds the distinction of being the only member of Congress to have voted against U.S. involvement in both World War I and World War II. After Rankin, the number of women in Congress steadily increased, and in 2007 Nancy Pelosi became the House’s first female speaker.

Strictly speaking, the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate was Rebecca Felton of Georgia, who was appointed in 1922 to fill her husband’s seat after he died. It was a largely symbolic gesture, in honor of the 87-year-old Felton’s commitment to women’s rights (and also a political move by Georgia’s governor to win the sympathies of newly enfranchised women voters). She served for only two days. The first woman elected to the Senate was Hattie Caraway of Arkansas. Like Felton, Caraway was the wife of a senator and was appointed to his seat upon his death, in 1931. But she subsequently won a special election to carry out her husband’s term, and, as a reliable supporter of New Deal legislation, she was reelected to the office twice. Only a few followed immediately in Caraway’s footsteps. The election of four female senators (Barbara Boxer, Carol Moseley Braun, Dianne Feinstein, and Patty Murray) in 1992—the so-called Year of the Woman—at once tripled the number of women in the chamber.

Yet another woman who replaced her husband in office was Nellie Tayloe Ross, who was elected governor of Wyoming in November 1924, mere weeks after William Ross’s sudden death. Although the circumstances were unexpected, the setting was appropriate: Wyoming had been the first state in the U.S. to allow women full voting rights. Ross lost her bid for reelection in 1926, but she remained politically active. In 1933 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt named her director of the U.S. Mint, a position she held for 20 years. Only 15 days after Ross became the nation’s first female governor, she was joined by Ma Ferguson of Texas. However, it was not until 1974, when Ella Grasso was elected governor of Connecticut, that a woman rose to her state’s highest office without having been preceded in the position by her spouse.

Several female firsts occurred when Franklin D. Roosevelt took the Oval Office in 1933. In addition to the appointment of Nellie Tayloe Ross at the U.S. Mint, Ruth Bryan Owen was named minister to Denmark (the first female chief of a diplomatic mission), and Frances Perkins became Roosevelt’s secretary of labor. Before serving in the White House, Perkins had tirelessly fought for workers’ rights and safety in various New York city and state agencies. As one of two cabinet members who served for the entirety of the Roosevelt administration (1933–45), she played an active role in developing and enacting a wide range of New Deal programs, including the Social Security Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Other women who have held cabinet posts include Janet Reno (the first female attorney general) and Madeleine Albright (the first female secretary of state).

During his 1980 campaign for president, Ronald Reagan vowed that, if elected, he would name a woman to the Supreme Court. He made good on his promise the following year when he nominated Arizona Court of Appeals Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to fill the vacancy opened by Potter Stewart’s retirement. O’Connor’s Senate confirmation was unanimous, and she went on to enjoy a 25-year career on the nation’s highest court, where she frequently cast the swing vote on landmark cases. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the court in 1993, O’Connor was delighted; “I was so glad to have company,” she later recalled. After O’Connor’s 2006 retirement, Ginsburg declared she was “lonely.” Fortunately, the situation was short-lived. Sonia Sotomayor was seated in 2009, and Elena Kagan followed suit a year later.

Although women had appeared on presidential tickets since the era of Victoria Woodhull, for decades they had been confined to minor parties that had little hope of accumulating even a single electoral vote. In 1984, however, Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale—aiming to build excitement for his campaign—selected Geraldine Ferraro, a New York congresswoman, as his running mate. (Dianne Feinstein, then mayor of San Francisco, was reportedly also a contender.) Unfortunately, Mondale was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan. Ferraro left Congress and, though she remained in the public eye, she never again held elected office, despite two bids for the Senate in the 1990s. Until Hillary Clinton captured the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, the only other woman to serve on a major party’s ticket was Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008.