Winning the Earthquake
How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
The first major biography of Jeannette Rankin, a groundbreaking suffragist, activist, and the first American woman to hold federal office.
“Few members of Congress have ever stood more alone while being true to a higher honor and loyalty.”
—President John F. Kennedy on Jeannette Rankin
Born on a Montana ranch in 1880, Jeannette Rankin knew how to ride a horse, make a fire, and read the sky for weather. But, most of all, she knew how to talk to people and unite them around a shared vision for America. It was this rare skill that led her to become the first woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. As her first act, Rankin put forth the legislation that would become the Nineteenth Amendment.
During her two terms, beginning in 1917 and in 1941, she introduced and lobbied for legislation strengthening women’s rights, protecting workers, supporting democratic electoral reform, and promoting peace through disarmament. As Congress’s fiercest pacifist, she used her vote to oppose the declaration of war against the German Empire in 1917 and the Japanese Empire in 1941, holding fast to her belief that “you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
A suffragist, peace activist, workers’ rights advocate, and champion of democratic reform who ran as a Republican, Rankin remained ever faithful to her beliefs, no matter the price she had to pay personally. Despite overcoming the entrenched boys’ club of oligarchic capitalists and career politicians to make enormous strides for women in politics, Rankin has been largely overlooked. In Winning the Earthquake, Lorissa Rinehart expertly recovers the compelling history behind this singular American hero, bringing her story back to life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Rinehart (First to the Front) offers an illuminating biography of the first woman elected to Congress. Best remembered for her votes against entering both world wars, Montana politician Jeanette Rankin (1880–1973) was also an advocate for progressive causes from suffrage and worker's rights to ranked choice voting and abolishing the electoral college. Funded by family wealth and first elected in 1916, Rankin was dogged by a sexist press, especially Montana's, which was controlled by the same copper monopolies she castigated for union busting. Rinehart notes that, unusually for a progressive, Rankin built a rural coalition; she also delves into how Rankin's politically expedient choice to ally on suffrage with racists who wanted white women's votes to counter Black men's ended up haunting her in both life and legacy. With novelistic flourish, Rinehart spotlights the pressure that Rankin's passion put on herself and others, though the narrative's ample focus on family dynamics (including a mentally ill mother) begs the question why a perpetually single Rankin's romantic life goes unaddressed. Throughout, Rinehart insinuates that Rankin's style of progressivism could have helped America forge a different path, if sexism had not led to her being overlooked as an influence (shockingly, no archive was interested in her papers; they were mostly lost). It's a gripping window into progressive political history and one woman's defiance of sexist gatekeepers.
