Rebecca Latimer Felton
Encyclopedia
Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton (June 10, 1835 – January 24, 1930) was an American writer, lecturer, reformer, and politician who became the first woman to serve in the United States Senate
. She was the most prominent woman in Georgia in the Progressive Era
, and was honored by appointment to the Senate; she was sworn in on November 21, 1922, and served one day, the shortest serving Senator in U.S. history. At 87 years old, 9 months and 22 days, she was also the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate. As of 2010, she is also the only woman to have served as a Senator from Georgia
. She was a prominent society woman and advocate for prison reform, women's suffrage and educational modernization, and one of the few prominent women who spoke in favor of lynching.
. She claimed, for instance, that the more money that Georgia spent on black education, the more crimes blacks committed. For the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition, she "proposed a southern exhibit 'illustrating the slave period,' with a cabin and 'real colored folks making mats, shuck collars, and baskets—a woman to spin and card cotton—and another to play banjo and show the actual life of [the] slave—not the Uncle Tom sort.'" She wanted to display "the ignorant contented darky—as distinguished from [Harriet Beecher] Stowe's monstrosities."
Felton considered "young blacks" who sought equal treatment "half-civilized gorillas," and ascribed to them a "brutal lust" for white women. While seeking suffrage for women, she decried voting rights for blacks, arguing that it led directly to the rape of white women.
In 1899, after a massive crowd of white Georgians tortured, mutilated and burned a black man, Sam Hose
—who purportedly had killed a white man in self-defense, but had not committed the rape of the white woman whites accused him of—and divided and sold his physical remains as souvenirs, Felton said that any "true-hearted husband or father" would have killed "the beast," and that Hose was due less sympathy than a rabid dog.
Felton also advocated the lynching of black men more generally, saying that such was "elysian" compared to the rape of white women. On at least one occasion, she stated that white Southerners should "lynch a thousand [black men] a week if it becomes necessary" to "protect woman's dearest possession."
movement in Georgia, Felton found many opponents in anti-suffragist Georgians such as Mildred Lewis Rutherford. During a 1915 debate with Rutherford and other anti-suffragists before the Georgia legislative committee, the chairman allowed each of the anti-suffragists to speak for forty five minutes, but demanded Felton stop speaking after the alloted half hour. Felton ignored him and spoke for an extra fifteen minutes, at one point making fun of Rutherford and implicitly accusing her of hypocrisy. However, the Georgia legislative committee did not pass the debated women's suffrage bill.http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/103001/ath_women.shtml Georgia was later the first state to reject the Nineteenth Amendment when it was proposed in 1919, and unlike most states in the Union, Georgia did not allow women to vote in the 1920 presidential election.http://books.google.com/books?id=zpmjRm4cdswC&pg=PA335&lpg=PA335&dq=women+georgia+1920+election+presidential&source=bl&ots=HTquc8F_WA&sig=wD1oxmx8BXiOjP7ybVGt32Wv7w4#PPA335,M1
Felton criticized what she saw as the hypocrisy of Southern men who boasted of superior Southern "chivalry" but opposed women's rights, and she expressed her dislike of the fact that Southern states resisted women's suffrage longer than other regions of the U.S. She wrote in 1915 that women were denied fair political participation "except in the States which have been franchised by the good sense and common honesty of the men of those States—after due consideration, and with the chivalric instinct that differentiates the coarse brutal male from the gentlemen of our nation. Shall the men of the South be less generous, less chivalrous? They have given the Southern women more praise than the man of the West—but judged by their actions Southern men have been less sincere. Honeyed phrases are pleasant to listen to, but the sensible women of our country would prefer more substantial gifts..."http://books.google.com/books?id=0qdkKS2F42MC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton+why+i+am+a+suffragist&source=bl&ots=B1fM_lWjgv&sig=bOmSGdPp921qKNy3TlmDU3uWaEc#PPA168,M1
was a candidate for the next general election
to the Senate, when Senator Thomas E. Watson
died prematurely. Seeking an appointee who would not be a competitor in the coming special election to fill the vacant seat, and a way to secure the vote of the new women voters alienated by his opposition to the 19th Amendment, Hardwick chose Felton to serve as Senator on October 3, 1922.
Congress was not expected to reconvene until after the election, so the chances were slim that Felton would be formally sworn in as Senator. However, Walter F. George
won the special election despite Hardwick's ploy. Rather than take his seat immediately when the Senate reconvened on November 21, 1922, George allowed Felton to be officially sworn in. This was due in part to persuasion by Felton http://books.google.com/books?id=n9SZh8eDtt0C&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=famous+american+women+felton&source=bl&ots=RVZcijpZb-&sig=awhm-vPP7pGF-UJlJ6TUIbaJEpchttp://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/01/persons-of-color-and-gender-in-national-politics/ and a supportive campaign launched by the women of Georgia.http://books.google.com/books?id=PDzUUkZmHsEC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=hattie+caraway+felton&source=bl&ots=-vtWZ8vzZM&sig=bpKsY0Lxh9h9JN27R8Mm4E_KB9I&hl=en&ei=WV3pSZiqKozstgOGmvHjAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9#PPA44,M1 Felton thus became the first woman seated in the Senate, and served until George took office on November 22, 1922, one day later.
Her tenure was the shortest for any Senator in history. She was also the last former slaveowner
to serve in the U.S. Senate.
. She died in Atlanta, Georgia
in 1930. She was interred in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville.
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
. She was the most prominent woman in Georgia in the Progressive Era
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...
, and was honored by appointment to the Senate; she was sworn in on November 21, 1922, and served one day, the shortest serving Senator in U.S. history. At 87 years old, 9 months and 22 days, she was also the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate. As of 2010, she is also the only woman to have served as a Senator from Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. She was a prominent society woman and advocate for prison reform, women's suffrage and educational modernization, and one of the few prominent women who spoke in favor of lynching.
White supremacy
Felton was a white supremacistWhite supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
. She claimed, for instance, that the more money that Georgia spent on black education, the more crimes blacks committed. For the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition, she "proposed a southern exhibit 'illustrating the slave period,' with a cabin and 'real colored folks making mats, shuck collars, and baskets—a woman to spin and card cotton—and another to play banjo and show the actual life of [the] slave—not the Uncle Tom sort.'" She wanted to display "the ignorant contented darky—as distinguished from [Harriet Beecher] Stowe's monstrosities."
Felton considered "young blacks" who sought equal treatment "half-civilized gorillas," and ascribed to them a "brutal lust" for white women. While seeking suffrage for women, she decried voting rights for blacks, arguing that it led directly to the rape of white women.
In 1899, after a massive crowd of white Georgians tortured, mutilated and burned a black man, Sam Hose
Sam Hose
Sam Hose was an African American worker who was tortured and executed by a lynch mob in Coweta County, Georgia.Sam Hose, a.k.a. Sam Holt, was born Tom Wilkes in south Georgia near Marshallville around 1875. He grew up on a Macon County farm owned by the Jones family...
—who purportedly had killed a white man in self-defense, but had not committed the rape of the white woman whites accused him of—and divided and sold his physical remains as souvenirs, Felton said that any "true-hearted husband or father" would have killed "the beast," and that Hose was due less sympathy than a rabid dog.
Felton also advocated the lynching of black men more generally, saying that such was "elysian" compared to the rape of white women. On at least one occasion, she stated that white Southerners should "lynch a thousand [black men] a week if it becomes necessary" to "protect woman's dearest possession."
Women's suffrage movement
A respected leader in the women's suffrageWomen's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
movement in Georgia, Felton found many opponents in anti-suffragist Georgians such as Mildred Lewis Rutherford. During a 1915 debate with Rutherford and other anti-suffragists before the Georgia legislative committee, the chairman allowed each of the anti-suffragists to speak for forty five minutes, but demanded Felton stop speaking after the alloted half hour. Felton ignored him and spoke for an extra fifteen minutes, at one point making fun of Rutherford and implicitly accusing her of hypocrisy. However, the Georgia legislative committee did not pass the debated women's suffrage bill.http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/103001/ath_women.shtml Georgia was later the first state to reject the Nineteenth Amendment when it was proposed in 1919, and unlike most states in the Union, Georgia did not allow women to vote in the 1920 presidential election.http://books.google.com/books?id=zpmjRm4cdswC&pg=PA335&lpg=PA335&dq=women+georgia+1920+election+presidential&source=bl&ots=HTquc8F_WA&sig=wD1oxmx8BXiOjP7ybVGt32Wv7w4#PPA335,M1
Felton criticized what she saw as the hypocrisy of Southern men who boasted of superior Southern "chivalry" but opposed women's rights, and she expressed her dislike of the fact that Southern states resisted women's suffrage longer than other regions of the U.S. She wrote in 1915 that women were denied fair political participation "except in the States which have been franchised by the good sense and common honesty of the men of those States—after due consideration, and with the chivalric instinct that differentiates the coarse brutal male from the gentlemen of our nation. Shall the men of the South be less generous, less chivalrous? They have given the Southern women more praise than the man of the West—but judged by their actions Southern men have been less sincere. Honeyed phrases are pleasant to listen to, but the sensible women of our country would prefer more substantial gifts..."http://books.google.com/books?id=0qdkKS2F42MC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton+why+i+am+a+suffragist&source=bl&ots=B1fM_lWjgv&sig=bOmSGdPp921qKNy3TlmDU3uWaEc#PPA168,M1
Senator
In 1922, Governor Thomas W. HardwickThomas W. Hardwick
Thomas William Hardwick was an American politician from the U.S. state of Georgia.Hardwick was born in Thomasville, Georgia. He graduated from Mercer University with a bachelor of arts degree in 1892 and received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Georgia in 1893...
was a candidate for the next general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
to the Senate, when Senator Thomas E. Watson
Thomas E. Watson
Thomas Edward "Tom" Watson was an American politician, newspaper editor, and writer from Georgia. In the 1890s Watson championed poor farmers as a leader of the Populist Party, articulating an agrarian political viewpoint while attacking business, bankers, railroads, Democratic President Grover...
died prematurely. Seeking an appointee who would not be a competitor in the coming special election to fill the vacant seat, and a way to secure the vote of the new women voters alienated by his opposition to the 19th Amendment, Hardwick chose Felton to serve as Senator on October 3, 1922.
Congress was not expected to reconvene until after the election, so the chances were slim that Felton would be formally sworn in as Senator. However, Walter F. George
Walter F. George
Walter Franklin George was an American politician from the state of Georgia. He was a long-time United States Senator and was President pro tempore. He was a Democrat.-Early years:...
won the special election despite Hardwick's ploy. Rather than take his seat immediately when the Senate reconvened on November 21, 1922, George allowed Felton to be officially sworn in. This was due in part to persuasion by Felton http://books.google.com/books?id=n9SZh8eDtt0C&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=famous+american+women+felton&source=bl&ots=RVZcijpZb-&sig=awhm-vPP7pGF-UJlJ6TUIbaJEpchttp://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/01/persons-of-color-and-gender-in-national-politics/ and a supportive campaign launched by the women of Georgia.http://books.google.com/books?id=PDzUUkZmHsEC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=hattie+caraway+felton&source=bl&ots=-vtWZ8vzZM&sig=bpKsY0Lxh9h9JN27R8Mm4E_KB9I&hl=en&ei=WV3pSZiqKozstgOGmvHjAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9#PPA44,M1 Felton thus became the first woman seated in the Senate, and served until George took office on November 22, 1922, one day later.
Her tenure was the shortest for any Senator in history. She was also the last former slaveowner
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Final years
Felton was engaged as a writer and lecturer and resided in Cartersville, GeorgiaCartersville, Georgia
Cartersville is a town in Bartow County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 19,7314. The city is the county seat of Bartow County.-Geography:Cartersville was named for Colonel Farish Carter....
. She died in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
in 1930. She was interred in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville.
Quotes
- "A Senator of the U.S., a woman, is still a sort of political joke with our masculine leaders in party politics... But the trail has been blazed! The road is apparently rough—maybe rocky—but the trail has been located. It is an established fact. While it is also a romantic adventure, it will ever remain an historical precedent—never to be erased.” Nov. 7, 1922 http://www.wilkinsons.com/Bananna/2005/08/who-was-rebecca-l-felton.html
- "When the women of the country come in and sit with you, though there may be but very few in the next few years, I pledge you that you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness." – Address to the Senate, November 21, 1922
- "When there is not enough religion in the pulpit to organize a crusade against sin; nor justice in the court house to promptly punish crime; nor manhood enough in the nation to put a sheltering arm about innocence and virtue----if it needs lynching to protect woman’s dearest possession from the ravening human beasts----then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary." August 11, 1897
- "Savage tribes used physical force to manage their women. The club and the lash were their only arguments. Moslem fanatics go a step further in saying women have no souls" – Why I Am a Suffragist? essay, dated May 14. 1915 http://books.google.com/books?id=0qdkKS2F42MC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton+why+i+am+a+suffragist&source=bl&ots=B1fM_lWjgv&sig=bOmSGdPp921qKNy3TlmDU3uWaEc#PPA165,M1
- "This women's movement is a great movement of the sexes toward each other, with common ideals as to government, as well as common ideals in domestic life, where fully developed manhood must seek and find its real mate in the mother of his children, as well as the solace of his home." – Why I Am a Suffragist? http://books.google.com/books?id=0qdkKS2F42MC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton+why+i+am+a+suffragist&source=bl&ots=B1fM_lWjgv&sig=bOmSGdPp921qKNy3TlmDU3uWaEc#PPA169,M1
- "I do not want to see a negro man walk to the polls and vote on who should handle my tax money, while I myself cannot vote at all. Is that fair?" http://books.google.com/books?id=0qdkKS2F42MC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton+why+i+am+a+suffragist&source=bl&ots=B1fM_lWjgv&sig=bOmSGdPp921qKNy3TlmDU3uWaEc#PPA177,M1
- On Slavery: "There were abuses, many of them. I do not pretend to defend these abuses. There were kind masters and cruel masters. There were violations of the moral law that made mulattoes as common as blackberries. In this one particular slavery doomed itself. When white men were willing to put their own offspring in the kitchen and corn field and allowed them to be sold into bondage as slaves and degraded as another man's slave, the retribution of wrath was hanging over this country and the South paid penance in four bloody years of war." – from her 1919 autobiography Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth http://www.google.com/books?id=gHsLIvQ_BN0C&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton&printsec=frontcover&source=in#PPA79,M1
- "There was never a more loyal woman in the South after we were forced by our political leaders to go to battle to defend our rights in ownership of African slaves, but they called it "State's Rights," and all I owned was invested in slaves and my people were loyal and I stood by them to the end. Like General LeeRobert E. LeeRobert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
I could not fight against my kindred in a struggle that meant life or death to them. Nevertheless I am now too near the borderland of eternity to withhold my matured conscientious and honest opinion. If there had been no slaves there would have been no war. To fight for the perpetuation of domestic slavery was a mistake. The time had come in the United States to wipe out this evil. The South had to suffer, and even when our preachers were leading in prayer for victory, during the war, and black-robed mothers and wives were weeping for their dead ones, who perished on the field of battle, I had questions in my own mind as to what would be the end of it." – from Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth http://www.google.com/books?id=gHsLIvQ_BN0C&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton&printsec=frontcover&source=in#PPA86,M1
External links
- Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835-1930) New Georgia Encyclopedia.
- U.S. Senate. First woman senator appointed. Retrieved March 1, 2005.
- Uncorrected transcript of interview with Richard Baker, Senate HistorianHistorian of the United States SenateThe Historian of the United States Senate heads the United States Senate Historical Office, which was created in 1975 to record and preserve historical information about the United States Senate. The current Historian of the Senate is Donald A...
, on C-SPANC-SPANC-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
Q&A television program, June 12, 2005 - Photograph of Rebecca Latimer Felton in 1927 Vanishing Georgia Collection.