Replies

Jeannette Pickering Rankin, the first woman elected to the US Congress (1916), even before the approval of the 19th Amendment, which granted the right to vote to all women who were US Citizens. A Republican from Montana, a state which had already granted the female suffrage to vote, she campaigned almost door-to-door throughout Montana, crisscrossing the state and appearing before church congregations, crowds at train stations, potluck suppers, remote one-room schoolhouses, and in meetings at ranches. And won by 7,500 votes, pretty convincing in thinly populated Montana. Maybe not 10% of Alexander Hamilton, but pretty impressive by any standard.

She sounds like an accomplished woman, but in my opinion the standard for appearing on currency ought to be higher than that. It ought to be accomplishments in regards to a significant impact on the nation.

Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Franklin all contributed heavily to the creation of this nation and setting up it's institutions.

Lincoln and Grant were the winners of the civil war, and in my opinion ought not to be on currency either. Kennedy and FDR should most certainly not be on currency.

Jeannette Pickering Rankin fails the test of having had a significant impact on the nation, though she may have very well had a significant impact on Montana and herself.

Then I offer a second female who had a large national impact in several ways - Clare Boothe Luce, married to Henry Luce, who had a most interesting upbringing, and a metamorphosis from an FDR supporter in 1932 to the other side of the spectrum, supporting every Republican nominee from Wendell Willkie to Ronald Reagan. A highly adventurous woman in many ways (she briefly tried LSD), she was also one of the first women to be named as an Ambassador, first to Italy, then to Brazil. But the nomination for the Brazil ambassadorship was fought so furiously by Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, that even though she won confirmation, she resigned in disgust at the tactics Senator Morse used.

Clare Booth Luce stood for election to a seat in Congress, representing the state of Connecticut, in 1942, and held the seat until 1947.

All in all, a much more interesting (and attractive) person than Herself, Madame Benghazi, the Cold & Joyless, and she did it all with a degree of strength and charm that stand head and shoulders, over most “accomplished” females of the present day. Actress, author, and gracious hostess, she married first for money, then for influence, both of which she managed to leverage into an ever-larger stage all the time.

And don’t forget her wry wit. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
“Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable.”
“They say women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.”
“Male supremacy has kept woman down. It has not knocked her out.”