On this day, January 12th, in 1932, Hattie Wyatt Caraway became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate representing the State of Arkansas.[1]
A month prior, in December 1931, she was appointed by the Governor of Arkansas to serve the remainder of her late husband’s term in the Senate. [2] (It was a precedent at the time for widows to serve in the place of their deceased husbands if they were to die while in office.)
And in January 1932 she defeated two other candidates, and won 92 percent of the vote, to continue representing the people of Arkansas. As a loyal Democrat, she voted for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and through his endorsement, she secured a lucrative $15 million dollar contract for the construction of an aluminum factory in her home state.
In 1938, as the nation was still In the grips of the Great Depression and on the eve of WWII, she won a competitive seven-way primary election in Arkansas in a bid to serve in the Senate for an additional term. She won the majority of votes (43 percent) and was elected by 61 out of the 75 of Arkansas counties. Her following six-year term included important legislation votes including the Lend-Lease Act which supplied armaments to Great Britain and the G.I. Bill, which provided college tuition and mortgage assistance for returning servicemen. [3]
Caraway is a notable example of a pioneer in the Senate. Sixty years following her first election victory in 1932 it was declared to be the, “Year of the Woman in 1992,” when four female Senators were elected. [4] Prior to 1992, there were no more than three female Senators during any given year. Currently there are 24 women serving in the 100 member Senate. [5]
Within the Gospels women played the ultimate pioneering role in being the first to share the resurrection message — ‘He has risen!’ (Mat. 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20). In the providence of God, He chose that the women who arrived at dawn to Joseph’s tomb on Sunday morning were the first to hear and share the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. Over 2,000 years later the same gospel message is being shared on Sunday mornings. And it is fitting that we, like the women present on the first Resurrection Sunday, still marvel at the empty tomb.
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Footnotes:
- https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/C000138
- https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/44589
- Hattie Caraway, the First Woman Elected to the U.S. Senate, Faced a Familiar Struggle With Gender Politics”. Smithsonian Magazine. A
- https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/year_of_the_woman.htm
- https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/women_senators.htm