Jeannette Rankin (1880 – 1973) MT

• First woman to speak before Montana legislature, helping secure woman’s voting rights in that state.
• Served as National Field Secretary for the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
• Mobilized network of Montana women to organize at the grassroots level for suffrage.
• She was the first woman elected to U.S. Congress (1916).
• She played a key role in the 19^th Amendment, opening the first congressional debate on the issue in 1918.

Quotes:

“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”

 

“I may be the first woman in congress, but I won’t be the last.”

 

“Men and women are like right and left hands; it doesn’t make sense not to use them both.”