Jeanette Rankin
(June 18, 1880 - May 18, 1973)
photo courtesy of Wikipedia

On November 7, 1916 Jeanette Rankin became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. A year after taking office, she was called upon to vote on the resolution to go to war. Her vote was one of 56 votes against it and she was reviled in the press.

In 1940, she ran for Congress on an anti-war platform and won. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was the only member of congress to vote against going to war. She traveled to India several times, meeting with Mahatma Gandhi and other pacifists.