WINNING THE EARTHQUAKE

A trailblazer’s career.

Rinehart, host of the podcast The Female Body Politic, chronicles the life of Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), the first woman in Congress, a tireless advocate for women’s suffrage, a social progressive, and a Republican. A lifelong pacifist, Rankin voted against participation in both world wars and lobbied against the Vietnam War, convinced that “imperialism formed the cause and purpose” of war. A Montana native, as a young woman she worked in a settlement house in San Francisco, which opened her eyes to poverty and need. At 28, she attended the New York School of Philanthropy, then returned to Missoula, where she mounted a grassroots protest to improve conditions in a women’s prison. After a dispiriting job at an orphanage, she enrolled at the University of Washington, taking courses in political science, economics, and public speaking, all serving her well in her campaign for women’s voting rights. As field secretary for the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she traveled the country, lobbying with “dogged tenacity.” Success in California and Montana inspired her to run for Congress on a platform of national women’s suffrage, Prohibition, government regulation of business, ranked-choice voting, and direct election of presidents rather than the Electoral College. In 1916, in Montana’s first election in which women voted, Rankin won. Rinehart examines Rankin’s unyielding pacifism, even when forced to ally with antisemitic and racist isolationists. Rankin, the author asserts, practiced politics “as the art of the possible and often overlooked the ethical failings of her allies to achieve her own ends.” After one term, Rankin continued her political activism outside of Washington until, in 1940, she made another successful congressional run. Drawing on Rankin’s many interviews, Rinehart imbues her narrative with her subject’s passion and voice.

A well-researched biography of a memorable woman.