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Sample Material updated July 2009 Do You Know? Who was the first American-born woman to become president? This is not a trick question. Janet Jagan was born in Chicago in 1920 and became president of the South American country of Guyana in 1997. Who was the first woman to solely rule a country? The legendary Queen Eyleuka of Ethiopia is believed to have lived sometime between 4530-3240 BC. It is said that she succeeded King Borsa and ruled for 45 years. Who was the first woman to become head of state or government in modern times? Sühbaataryn Yanjmaa served as acting president of Mongolia from September 23, 1953 to July 7, 1954, after the death of President Gonchigiyn Bumtsend. Who was the first woman to be president? Maria Estella (“Isabel”) Martínez Cartas de Perón had been elected vice-president of Argentina when President Juan Perón, her husband, died. Isabel Perón was president from July 1, 1974 to March 24, 1976. She was the third wife of Juan Perón. His second wife, María Eva Duarte de Perón, the famed “Evita” Peron, had considered a run for vice-president herself in 1951 when her husband was president. But, she decided not to run and later died of uterine cancer at the age of 33 in 1952. Who was the first woman elected president? Vigdis Finnbogadóttir of Iceland was elected president in 1980 and re-elected in 1984, 1988, and 1992. She retired in 1996. Who was the first woman to become prime minister? Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became prime minister in 1960 and served until 1965. She was prime minister again from 1970 to 1977. In 1994 her daughter, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, was elected president, and appointed Bandaranaike prime minister, a position she held until she resigned due to poor health in 2000. (A president is generally elected directly by the electorate; a prime minister is generally elected by the national legislature or parliament, or appointed by a president.) How many women have been prime minister or president or chancellor? Sixty-three women from 47 countries have been president, prime minister or chancellor. There are currently 194 countries, so women have served as president, prime minister, chancellor or acting head of state in over 22% of the countries of the world. How many women are prime minister or president today? Seventeen countries have women presidents, prime ministers, or chancellor: Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany; President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia; President Mary McAleese, Ireland; President Tarja Halonen, Finland; President Michelle Bachelet, Chile; President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Philippines; Prime Minister Luísa Dias Diogo, Mozambique; President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina; President Pratibha Devisingh Patil, India, Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, Ukraine; Prime Minister Zinaida Grecianii, Moldova; Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Bangladesh; Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, Iceland; Interim President Rose Francine Rogombé of Gabon; Prime MInister Jadranka Kosor of Croatia; President Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuania; and President Doris Leuthard, Switzerland. Has any country had a woman in both the #1 and #2 top leadership positions at the same time? From 1994 to 2005, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was president of Sri Lanka and her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was prime minister from 1994 to 2000. In 2003, Tarja Halonen was president of Finland and appointed Anneli Tuulikki Jäätteenmäki as prime minister. In Finland, the president is the chief of state elected by the populous and the prime minister is the head of government appointed by the president and approved by the parliament. What woman ruled her country for the longest period? That is hard to determine definitively, but Queen Victoria ruled England for nearly 64 years, from 1837 to 1901. That was the period of England’s greatest power, known as the Victorian period. What was the first state in the United States to give women the universal right to vote? The Territory of Wyoming was the first to fully enfranchise women with the right to vote in 1869. When Wyoming became a state in 1890, it was the first state to provide women full voting rights. What was the first country to give women the universal right to vote? New Zealand gave women the right to vote in 1893, but women could not run for parliament until 1919. In 1902, Australia gave women the right to vote with restrictions. What was the first country to give women the universal right to vote and run for office? In 1906, women won the universal right to vote and run for office in Finland. In elections the following year, 19 women were elected to parliament. When did women across the United States get the right to vote? On August 26, 1920, the nineteenth amendment to the constitution was certified, giving women the right to vote. Women also had the implied right to run for office. Who was the first woman to become a US Senator? Rebecca Latimer Felton, a Georgia Democrat, became the first woman to serve in the US Senate. She was appointed to fill a vacant seat temporarily; she served for only 24 hours in 1922. Who was the first woman elected US Senator? In 1931, Hattie Wyatt Caraway, a Democrat from Arkansas, was appointed by the governor to the US Senate to succeed her late husband. She was elected in 1932 and again in 1938, becoming the first woman elected to the US Senate. Who was the first woman elected to the US House of Representatives? Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, was elected in 1916 and began serving in the US House of Representatives in 1917. (Montana had given women the right to vote in 1914.) She unsuccessfully ran for the US Senate in 1918. Years later, she was re-elected to the US House in 1940. She is the only woman who has ever represented Montana in Congress. Who was the first woman to become governor in the US? Nellie Tayloe Ross, a Democrat from Wyoming, and Miriam "Ma" Amanda Wallace Ferguson, a Democrat from Texas, were both elected governor in 1924. "Ma" Ferguson was the first woman to be elected to the office of governor, but Nellie Ross was sworn into office first on January 5, 1925. “Ma” Ferguson assumed office on January 20, 1925. In both cases, their husbands had previously been governor. Nellie Ross' husband had died in office and she was elected governor in a special election to fill the vacancy. "Ma" Ferguson's husband was impeached and unable to get his name on the ballot, so she ran for governor and won. Who was the first woman to become a US cabinet member? In 1933, Frances Perkins was appointed Secretary of Labor by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Patricia Roberts Harris was the first African-American woman cabinet member. She was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by Jimmy Carter in 1977 and Secretary of Health and Human Services by Carter in 1979. Aida Alvarez, Administrator of the Small Business Administration, was the first Latina to be appointed to a cabinet-level position. She was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1997. Elaine Chao became the first Asian-American woman to hold a cabinet position when she was appointed Secretary of Labor by George W. Bush in 2001. Madeleine Albright was the highest ranking woman in the US to date when she became Secretary of State in 1997. In 2005, Condoleezza Rice became the first African-American woman Secretary of State. Who was the first woman to serve on a state supreme court in the US? Florence Ellinwood Allen was elected to the Ohio Supreme Court in 1922 and re-elected in 1928. The second woman elected to serve on a state's highest court was Lorna E. Lockwood in 1960 in Arizona. Who was the first woman appointed to the US federal courts? In 1934, President Roosevelt appointed Florence Ellinwood Allen of Cleveland to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Burnita Shelton Matthews was appointed in 1949 and became the first woman to serve on a US District Court in 1950. Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court in 1981. Who was the first woman to become Chief Justice of a state supreme court in the US? Lorna E. Lockwood was the first woman to be elected to the Arizona Supreme Court in 1960 and joined the court in January 1961. She was selected by her peers to become Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court in 1965, the first woman Chief Justice of a state supreme court in the United States. She served on the Arizona Supreme Court until 1975. Susie Marshall Sharp was elected Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1974, becoming the first woman elected Chief Justice of a state supreme court in the United States. She retired in 1979, at the mandatory retirement age of 72, after 17 years on the supreme court. Petra Jimenez-Maes of New Mexico became the first Hispanic woman state supreme court Chief Justice in 2003. In New Mexico, the Chief Justice is a two-year position. Petra Jimenez-Maes continues to serve on the New Mexico supreme court, but not as Chief Justice. In 2005, Leah Ward Sears of Georgia became the first African-American woman state supreme court Chief Justice. She continues to be the only African-American woman Chief Justice.
Did You Know? Regarding the Right to Vote: Women, who owned property, were allowed to vote in New Jersey from 1790 to 1807. Property ownership was required to show a stake in the community in which the individual resided. The property-owner was viewed as the head of the household and supposedly voted for the entire household. In New Jersey, women were allowed to inherit property, but generally could not purchase property. (Even as late as the 1970s, many US banks required a man to co-sign for a mortgage for a single woman.) In 1807, the New Jersey legislature limited voting to free, white males. Women could not vote again in New Jersey until 1920. In 1838, Kentucky allowed widows and single women, who owned property subject to school taxes, to vote in school board elections. The was ten years before voting in general elections was first proposed for women. The universal right to vote for women was proposed in 1848 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY. Three hundred people, including forty men, attended the convention. Stanton drafted eleven resolutions asserting equality for women in all areas. The ninth resolution focused on the right to vote. All of the resolutions were passed unanimously except for woman suffrage, a radical notion at the time. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and an eloquent speaker, swayed the participants into agreeing to the resolution. The Declaration of Sentiments was signed by 68 women and 32 men. Only one woman who signed the Declaration of Sentiments lived long enough to legally vote: Rhonda Palmer voted in 1918 after New York State gave women the right to vote. She died in 1919 at the age of 103 before the nineteenth amendment was enacted. Charlotte Woodward Pierce was the only woman who signed the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 who lived long enough to see the enactment of the nineteenth amendment in 1920, but she reportedly was too ill by then to vote. The Territory of Wyoming was the first to fully enfranchise women with the right to vote in 1869. Wyoming became a state in 1890 and was the first state to provide women full voting rights. Fifteen states and the territory of Alaska gave women the right to vote before the nineteenth amendment was enacted in 1920, ensuring the right to vote for women across the US. The nineteenth amendment, giving women the right to vote, was ratified by one vote. By August 1920, thirty-five of the needed thirty-six states had ratified the nineteenth amendment. The final vote was scheduled in Tennessee. If the amendment was not ratified in Tennessee, there would not be enough time to ratify it before the 1920 presidential election and women would have to wait another four years to vote for president. The “War of the Roses” began with anti-suffrage Tennessee legislators wearing an American Beauty red rose depicting femininity and their efforts “to save Southern womanhood”. The pro-suffrage forces wore yellow roses, the color of the suffrage movement. The youngest legislator, 24-year-old Harry Thomas Burn, was counted with the anti-suffrage forces since he wore a red rose. But his mother, Febb (Phoebe) Ensminger Burn, sent him the following note referring to Carrie Chapman Catt, a leader in the suffrage movement: “Dear Son: Hurry and vote for suffrage! Don’t keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification. Your mother” When Harry saw that the vote was very close (with his anti-suffrage vote, it would have been tied 48 to 48), he decided to vote as his mother urged him. Explaining later, why he changed his position, he said: “I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.” Until women won the vote, they could not serve on juries. Because juries are selected from the list of registered voters, until women won the vote, they were also excluded from being selected for juries. A woman plaintant or defendant, on trial by a “jury of her peers”, would be faced with an all-male jury. Even after women won the vote, many states still excluded them from jury duty. A bill putting women on federal juries didn't become law until 1937. Firsts for Elected Women (from the Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University): The first women state legislators were three Republicans elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 1894: Clara Cressingham, Carrie C. Holly, and Frances Klock. The first woman state senator was Martha Hughes Cannon, a Utah Democrat who was elected in 1896. Susanna Salter of Argonia, Kansas, was elected mayor in 1887 – the first woman mayor in the country. The first woman of color in Congress was Representative Patsy Mink (D-HI) who served from 1965-1977 and again from 1990 until her death in 2002. The first African American woman in Congress was Shirley Chisholm (D-NY), who served from 1969-1983. The first Latina in Congress was Representative Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-FL), who took office in 1989 and is still serving. Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL) is the first and only African-American woman elected to the US Senate. She was elected to one term in 1992. In 1994, a record 34 (18D, 15R, 1ACP) women filed for gubernatorial races and a record 10 women won their primaries. In 1998, 2002 and 2006, the record number of women gubernatorial nominees was tied with 10 women winning their primaries. The largest number of women to file as candidates for US Senate elections was 29 (22D, 7R), which occurred in 1992. The largest number of women to win major-party nominations for the US Senate was 12 (8D, 4R) in 2006, beating the previous record of 11 which occurred in 1992 (10D, 1R) and again in 2002 (8D, 3R). A record 222 (140D, 82R) women filed as candidates for the US House in 1992. In 2002 a record 141 (88D, 53R) women won their primaries and became their parties’ candidates for the US House of Representatives. Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) was the first woman to serve in both the US House and US Senator. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is the first woman (and the only Republican woman) to have been elected to her State House, State Senate, US House, and US Senate. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) also followed this path to the US Senate, making her the first Democratic woman to do so. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA 47) and Linda Sanchez (D-CA 39) are the first sisters to serve together in Congress. Governor Janet Napolitano (D-AZ) is the first woman to succeed another woman as governor of a state.
Sources: Keyssar, Alexander, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the Unites States (New York, 2000). Smithsonian Institute National Portrait Gallery Tennessee Federation of Republican Women Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches from Around the World Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), Rutgers University |
