Primary Sources: People - American Women: Rankin, Jeannette

"After Congress decided in 1917 that it would only consider war-related bills, both the NWP and NAWSA stressed women’s wartime contributions and pitched women’s suffrage as a “war measure.” Suffragists produced handbills such as this one demonstrating how women had served their country during the war and asked only for enfranchisement in return. Antisuffragists responded in kind, as in this handbill, which highlighted the pre-war pacifist positions of Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Howard Shaw and warned voters that Congress would gain more members like the recently elected Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who voted against the president’s war declaration."

"In this letter of January 8, 1918 (misdated December), she asked President Woodrow Wilson to exert influence on “doubting Members,” pointedly reminding him of his avowed support for democracy. The next day, Wilson publicly endorsed the federal suffrage amendment for the first time and met with ten wavering representatives. On January 10, the bill narrowly passed the House but was shelved in the Senate."

"View of a campaign banner created by Richard F. (Dick) Beale of Absarokee, Montana, for Republican candidates in the 1916 General Election. Figure on the right is Frank J. Edwards, Republican candidate for Governor and on the left is Republican candidate for President, Charles Evans Hughes. In the middle is a shield with a message supporting Jeannette Rankin, the Republican candidate for U.S. Representative to Congress. The message reads: 'For Congress, Jeannette Rankin, The Ruby Gem of Montana.'"

"Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to serve in Congress, was elected to represent Montana in 1916. This election certificate, signed by both the governor and secretary of state, confirmed Rankin’s election with the Clerk of the House. Rankin was seated as a Member of Congress in the 65th Congress."

"This collection includes four interviews detailing the life and political career of Jeannette Rankin. The interviews were conducted in 1980 by Helen Bonner, a University of Ohio graduate, as research for her screenplay, A Higher Loyalty: The Jeannette Rankin Story. The interviewees include: former Montana legislators Thomas Haines and Winfield Page; Rankin’s former press secretary Belle Winestine; and Vivian Halinan, former president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. They discuss Rankin’s involvement with the women’s suffrage movement and Montana politics from the 1920s to the 1950s. The original interviews are held as Oral History collection OH 104 at Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula"

quoted in the Montana Good Government State Central Committee records, 1895-1919. Small Collection 567. Montana Historical Society Research Center. Archives. Excerpted in Not In Precious Metals Alone: A Manuscript History of Montana (Helena, 1976): 235.

"The Montana Memory Project (MMP) is an online source for digital collections relating to Montana’s cultural heritage. In part, these collections document the Montana experience. Access is free and open through the Internet. Many of these items are digitized copies of historic material, some items are contemporary. All serve as a resource for education, business, pleasure, and lifelong learning. "

Provides links to primary documents associated with Rankin.

"In the early 1970s the Suffragists Oral History Project, under the auspices of the Bancroft Library's Regional Oral History Office, collected interviews with twelve leaders and participants in the woman's suffrage movement. Tape-recorded and transcribed oral histories preserved the memories of these remarkable women, documenting formative experiences, activities to win the right to vote for women, and careers as leaders of the movements for welfare and labor reform, world peace, and the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Now, 25 years later, the nineteenth century meets the twenty-first as the words of these activist women, born from the 1860s to the 1890s, are made accessible for future scholarly research and public information via the Internet. "

Articles include: "Miss Rankin will Represent all Women of United States" and "Who is Jeanette Rankin and What Will She Do?