On June 10, 1835, Rebecca Latimer Felton was born in Decatur, Georgia. A fiercely articulate writer, political strategist, and reformer, Felton would permanently secure a place in the annals of American political history by becoming the very first woman to ever serve in the United States Senate, taking her official oath of office in November 1922.
Her monumental legislative achievement was a highly calculated piece of symbolic political theater. Following the sudden death of Senator Thomas E. Watson, Georgia’s governor appointed the 87-year-old Felton to fill the vacancy as a strategic compliment to the newly enfranchised female electorate, fully aware that a special election would replace her in just 24 hours. Though her historic Senate career lasted for a single day, Felton utilized her brief moments on the chamber floor to deliver a powerful, prophetic speech declaring that the door she had opened would never be closed to American women again.
