Media Curiosities
By virtue of their gender, the earliest women in Congress were media celebrities: chronicled, quoted, and scrutinized. Perhaps none received more attention than Rankin, whose 1916 election catapulted her into the national spotlight. Manufacturing companies sought her endorsement; cranks sent offers of marriage. She received an unusually large amount of visitors and mail—by one account, 300 letters daily.18 These demands required her to hire three secretaries to join her in her one-room office.19 Rankin agreed to write a monthly column for Chicago’s Sunday Herald, and she signed a lucrative contract ($500 per lecture) with a New York speakers bureau. “To be suddenly thrown into so much limelight was a great shock,” Rankin recalled. “It was very hard for me to understand, to realize that it made a difference what I did and didn’t do from then on.”20
Other women were thrust into the spotlight as the offspring of prominent political families. The New York Times and the Washington Post ran lengthy feature stories on two famous daughters whose fathers were avowed political enemies: Ruth Bryan Owen (a daughter of Democratic giant William Jennings Bryan) and Ruth McCormick (the daughter of Mark Hanna). During her 1928 campaign, McCormick became the first woman featured on the cover of Time magazine.22 Before an adoring press gallery, Owen and McCormick entered the House arm in arm on April 15, 1929, the first day of the 71st Congress (1929–1931), and were sworn in as new Representatives.23
Those uncomfortable with Washington social circles or reticent about the media glare received less charitable press coverage, which often focused on a Member’s mannerisms, attire, and physical attributes rather than on substantive legislative issues. Katherine Langley was singled out for her flamboyance. “She offends the squeamish by her unstinted display of gypsy colors on the floor and the conspicuousness with which she dresses her bushy blue-black hair,” wrote one reporter.24 Representative Mae Nolan complained that she was regularly misquoted and misrepresented. The press took unmerciful delight in noting that she had taken up golf in her quest for a slimmer figure. Gradually, Congresswoman Nolan withdrew from the spotlight, eventually shunning floor speeches, lobbyists, and especially, journalists. When she retired after a brief House career, the Washington Post declared “in Congress 2 years, she did no ‘talking.’”25
Footnotes
18Norma Smith, Jeannette Rankin: America’s Conscience (Helena: Montana Historical Society, 2002): 115.
19Smith, Jeannette Rankin: 115. The House Office Building had been opened in 1908 and was meant to accommodate all House Members and committees. By and large, each Member was assigned a one-room office.
20Quoted in Smith, Jeannette Rankin: 104; see also, Hannah Josephson, Jeannette Rankin, First Lady In Congress—A Biography (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974): 57. A highly unusual feature of the lecture contract was that if she voted against a war resolution, the contract could be terminated. Josephson, Jeannette Rankin: 62–63; 67.
21“‘Miss Alice’ To Be Meek in Congress,” 26 February 1921, Washington Post: 10; “Spankings to Silence Talkative In House Advocated by Miss Alice,” 5 March 1923, Washington Post: 4.
22Miller, Ruth Hanna McCormick: A Life in Politics: 193. McCormick appeared in the 23 April 1928 edition, weeks after her Illinois primary victory. Senator Margaret Chase Smith appeared on a Time cover in 1959, marking the 40th anniversary of the suffrage amendment.
23Winifred Mallon, “Another Hanna Looks to the Senate,” 9 June 1929, New York Times: SM4.
24Hope Chamberlin, A Minority of Members: Women in the U.S. Congress (New York: Praeger, 1973): 64.
25Constance Drexel, “Mrs. Nolan No ‘Crusader’; Mrs. Barrett Gains Note,” 24 February 1924, Washington Post: ES 3; “In Congress 2 Years, She Did No ‘Talking,’” 5 March 1925, Washington Post: 9.