Big shoes to fill

    Jeannette Pickering Rankin was the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana in 1916, and again in 1940. She remains the only woman elected to Congress by Montana. In 1917 she joined a handful of representatives who voted against entry into World War I asserting, despite harsh criticism and certain damage to her career, that “the first time the first woman had a chance to say no against war she should say it.”