They Persisted

First elected to the House of Representatives out of San Francisco in 1987, Nancy Pelosi (1940-) served as Speaker of the House from 2007 to 2011. Her fingerprints are all over some important legislation. Since Jan., 2019, she has been serving her second term in that office. She remains the only female Speaker in history.

It should always be remembered that Pelosi has been standing on the shoulders of many brave women. Some of them attended the Seneca Falls Convention that 171 years ago, to this day, kicked off the women's rights movement in the U.S.A.

For instance, in 1916, Jeanette Rankin (1880-1973) was elected to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1917-19. She was one of two at-large representatives for the state of Montana and she was the first woman ever elected to serve in Congress. Rankin was a dauntless suffragette and pacifist. She also served a second term in the House over 20 years later, 1941-43. She was the sort of Republican we don't see much of, anymore.

In 1932 Hattie W. Caraway (1878-1950) became to first woman to be elected to a full six-year term in the U.S. Senate. As a Democrat in the Depression Era she routinely supported Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal measures.

After serving four years in New York's state legislature, in 1968 Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) won a seat in the House of Representatives. That made her the first Black woman ever to serve in Congress. In 2015 Chisholm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Nominated by Pres. Ronald Reagan in 1981 the Senate unanimously approved the appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-) to the Supreme Court. She was the first woman to serve on the high court. In 1992 O’Connor proved to be the swing vote to reaffirm the Roe v. Wade decision in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case.

In 1948 Madeleine Albright (1937-) and her family (her father was a diplomat) immigrated to the U.S.A from Czechoslovakia; they settled in Denver. After serving as Ambassador to the United Nations for four years, Pres. Bill Clinton then appointed Albright to be Secretary of State. Thus she became the first woman to serve that capacity, which she did for four years.

Two of the Democratic Party's top tier presidential hopefuls for the 2020 race are women -- Sen. Kamala Harris (1964-) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (1949). Largely, next year it will be how women voters cast their ballots that will decide if America elects its first female president. 

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