On this week in Arkansas history, Hattie Caraway became the first woman elected to serve as a United States Senator. Although Jeanette Rankin was the first woman elected to the House of Representatives and Rebecca Latimer Felton was the first woman appointed to serve in the Senate—for one day—Caraway is important to state and national history because she earned her place in government and history.
Born in Tennessee in 1878 as Hattie Wyatt, Hattie Caraway was a schoolteacher by profession. She received a bachelor’s degree in 1898 and taught until she married Thaddeus Caraway in 1902. The two moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas, where her husband pursued his legal profession. Thaddeus Caraway was voted into the US House of Representatives in 1912 (and not long after became the namesake of Caraway, Arkansas). He later successfully ran to become a US Senator in 1931.
When he died in that year, it was common practice for congressmen's widows to be appointed until a special election could determine the next congressman. Hattie Caraway was sworn in as a Senator on December 9, 1931. A special election was held on this week in 1932 in which Caraway won; she completed her husband's term. Caraway became the first female senior Senator to her state in 1937, and she continued to win her Senate seat until 1945. While in the Senate, she was the first woman to chair a committee. She was a member of the agriculture committee, a role relevant to the interests of her state.
Hattie Caraway passed away in 1950. In 2001, Caraway was the first person from Arkansas to appear on a US postage stamp. The library does have a book specifically on Hattie Caraway’s election campaign. Caraway played one of many roles instrumental to Jonesboro and Craighead County development as well as Arkansas government and history as a whole.
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