For our new project, my group is covering WWI. I myself am presenting the Weapons of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles. And for an extension, I'm doing something completely unrelated to what I'm studying. That's. How. Cool. I. Am. Chapter 11 starts of with a small tidbit about Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. While making people drown in their own goopy stuff and a bunch of old guys settling the war is cool (chyeah... right) I figured this might be a little more interesting for a blog entry. Okay maybe not. But I'm running out of ideas. :PSo this lady, Senorita Rankin, was a big time supporter of women suffrage, which i hope you remember is not 'suffering' but 'getting the right to vote' which I'm sure many men back then would insist was one in the same, anywho... She was from Montana. A few states let women vote before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, and Montana was one of them. When she was elected in 1917 women could not vote in the United States, but they could in Montana. Which makes total sense, as I'm sure you realize.Rankin voted against going to war in both World Wars. This made her pretty unpopular so she never ran for a seat in the house again. Four days into her first term she voted against going to war with Germany. However, she did vote for the military draft. She was the only member of Congress to vote against going to war after Pearl Harbor. She's known for saying "As a woman, I can't go to war and I refuse to send anyone else. It is not necessary. I vote 'NO'". She was for better health care and midwife-awesomeness-improvement because like most non-psychopaths dying babies didn't make her think of sunshine-and-rainbow-fluff.After her political career came to a screeching halt, she made a few trips to India and became a big fan of Ghandi. She died in 1973 at the age of 92, when she was stampeded by a violent herd of water buffaloes in heat. Not really. She was just really old. A statue depicting her beastliness was erected at Statuary Hall in 1985. She also set up a scholarship fund with her assets after she died.So, there you have it, a beast of a lady who went against the popular thing and did not crumble under peer pressure. She stood up for what she believed in. Unfortunately, other people didn't agree and well... That didn't exactly work out well for her in the end. But that's otay! :D
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  • Somehow i knew i would
  • It is impressive that she stuck to her guns as anti-war but it would be tough to vote against war with Japan after Pearl Harbor.

    You had me with the water buffalo death for a moment!
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