Who Is Jeannette Rankin?

Remarks at the dedication of Jeannette Rankin’s statue in the United States Capitol, 1 May 1985.

She remains one of the most controversial and unique women in Montana and American political history. As the first woman ever elected to a legislative body in a western democracy, and the only member of Congress to oppose entrance into both world wars, her commitment to the cause of peace and equality grew steadily throughout her long life. From a young participant in the Progressive, Peace and Suffrage movements of the early twentieth century, she served her country for over fifty years as a gallant warrior for peace and justice.

Her public career surged and waned in twenty-five year cycles because of the three major wars the United States fought in that century. Whether in or out of the limelight, she never ceased her fight for peace.

Unlike most female pacifists before the First World War, she did not come from an eastern Quaker background. She came from Montana, and she credited her home state, rather than religion, for her beliefs: a frontier where women and men shared the burdens equally, and where, as she put it at 92, men had experienced pioneer ways and so they gave women the vote, and then women decided to use the ballot to improve things.

She was also the first proponent of what we now call the gender gap. Long before opinion polling described it, she had reached a singular conclusion: the peace problem is a woman’s problem, and disarmament will not be won without their aid.

Her pacifism never made her an isolationist. She emerged from the First World War believing the United States could no longer isolate itself, arguing that whatever happens in one part of the world affects every other part sooner or later. She supported international cooperation and opposed American interventionism, objecting to the use of military force anywhere except in defence of the continental United States.

This section is provided courtesy of Allyson Adams, who toured for more than a decade with her solo show Peace is a Woman’s Job, and later made a film of the same name.