Women have made history in this year's US elections - New Hampshire has voted for all-female representation, Tammy Baldwin has become the first openly gay senator, and a record number of women have been elected to Congress.

Published in the Manchester Guardian on 11 November 1916



The first woman elected to Congress was Jeanette Rankin, who was elected to the House of Representatives in 1916 - four years before women in America were allowed to vote nationally - but it was eight years later, in 1922, that a woman first took a seat in the Senate - and even then, it was just for one day.

Published in the Manchester Guardian in October 1922. Click on the article to read in full.

Rebecca Felton may have been described by the Manchester Guardian in 1922 as a "little old grandmotherly person" but she had years of political experience, both in the women's suffrage movement and alongside her husband, William Harrell Felton, who had served as a congressman himself. Despite her commitment to women's rights, her radicalism did not extend to other political movements - she publicly spoke out in favour of lynching, and was one of the last US Senators to have also been a former slave-owner.

Felton was appointed to the Senate to fill the vacancy left by the death of Georgia Senator Tom Watson, and only held the post until the successor was elected. She was sworn in on 21 November 1922, and succeeded by Walter F. George on 22 November 1922, making her one-day stint the shortest in history.

Felton had become the first woman Senator through a quirk of death and fate - the seat had originally been offered to Watson's widow, who had refused. The idea of widows' succession, where a woman saw out the end of her late husband's term until a successor is elected, saw Mae Ella Nolan becoming a Congresswoman in 1923.

Published in the Manchester Guardian on January 14 1932.



The first woman actually elected to serve a full term in the Senate was Hattie Caraway, in 1932, who served three terms.