Jeannette Rankin

Rankin was elected to the US House from Montana in 1916, four years before the 19th Amendment, because Montana's women had won the vote in 1914 in a state campaign she helped lead. The sequence matters: state-by-state victories created electorates that could send women to Washington before national suffrage existed. In January 1918 she opened the House debate on the suffrage amendment. She is also remembered for voting against entry into both world wars; she was the only member to oppose war with Japan in 1941, and did not stand again.