PEACE, NOT WAR - She may have been the most unpopular woman in America. To some, she was a hero. To others she was a villain or even a traitor. She was born in Montana in the 1880s and in 1916 became the first woman ever elected to the United States House of Representatives. Prior to her election, she led the movement to allow women to vote in Montana. She served as Legislative Secretary of the National American Women's Suffrage Organization. She was a staunch opponent of war and voted against our country's entry into World War I. After the war she devoted her life to being a lobbyist and a social worker. She moved to Bogart, Georgia in 1923 and established the Georgia Peace Society in 1928. She served as the Secretary of the National Council for the Prevention of War. On October 3, 1935, Jeannette Rankin stopped in Dublin for a press conference. She talked to reporters for an hour or so at the Fred Roberts Hotel. She returned to Congress in 1940 and cast the lone dissenting vote to declare war against Japan. At 88 years of age, she took part in her last anti-war protest in 1968, when she led a 5000 woman march in Washington, D.C. Dublin Courier Herald, Oct. 4, 1935, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, 1994.
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