By Lady Houston
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway (February 1, 1878 – December 21, 1950) was an American politician who became the first woman elected to serve a full term as a United States Senator. Caraway represented Arkansas. She was the first woman to preside over the Senate. She won reelection to a full term in 1932 with the active support of fellow Senator Huey Long, of neighboring Louisiana.
U.S. Senator
Thaddeus Caraway died in office in 1931. Following the precedent of appointing widows to temporarily take their husbands’ places, Arkansas governor Harvey Parnell appointed Hattie Caraway to the vacant seat, and she was sworn into office on December 9.
Elections
January 1932
With the Democratic Party of Arkansas‘s backing, she easily won a special election in January 1932 for the remaining months of the term, becoming the first woman elected to the Senate.
In May 1932, Caraway surprised Arkansas politicians by announcing that she would run for a full term in the upcoming election, joining a field already crowded with prominent candidates who had assumed she would step aside.
Caraway went on to win the general election in November, with the accompanying victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt as U.S. President
1938
In 1938, Caraway entered a tough fight for reelection, challenged by Representative John Little McClellan, who argued that a man could more effectively promote the state’s interests using the slogan, “Arkansas Needs Another Man in the Senate!” With backing from government employees, women’s groups, and unions, Caraway won a narrow victory in the primary and took the general election with 89.4 percent of the vote over the Republican C. D. Atkinson of Fayetteville in Washington County. In doing so, she became not only the first woman to be elected to the Senate, but also the first to be re-elected.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
I haven’t gardened before but am thinking about growing some vegetables. How do I begin?
The best way to begin is to think about the type of vegetables you most like to eat. Look through seed catalogs to help you. Next, prioritize your list and research the important characteristics for growing each vegetable—for example, how much space it will need, how much sun, what kind of soil, how much moisture, when it must be planted, and how long it needs to grow before it can be harvested. Choose vegetables that you know grow well in your area. Ask your local nursery or the county extension office for suggestions. We’ve written an entire beginner gardening guide—check it out here: Learn How to Grow a Vegetable Garden
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Died
- Marie-Antoine Carême (French haute cuisine founder) –
- Shep (loyal dog) –
- Agatha Christie (author) –
- Cyrus Vance (Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter) –
- Maurice Gibb (with his brothers built the Bee Gees into a disco sensation with hits like Stayin’ Alive” and “More Than a Woman”“) –
Born
- John Singer Sargent (artist) –
- Frank Gerber (manufacturer) –
- Jack London (author) –
- Joe Lewis (comedian) –
- Tex Ritter (singer) –
- Jose Arcadio Limon (dancer) –
- James Leonard Farmer Jr. (civil rights activist) –
- Katherine MacGregor (actress) –
- Tim Horton (hockey player) –
- Joe Frazier (boxer) –
- Kirstie Alley (actress) –
- Christiane Amanpour (broadcast journalist) –
- Dominique Wilkins (basketball player) –
Events
- First public museum in America, Charleston Museum, organized in Charleston, South Carolina –
- Mission Santa Clara de Asis in California established–
- Forward pass legalized in football–
- A couple from China became the youngest parents in history. The dad was 9 years old and the mom was 8–
- Ford Motor Co. raised minimum daily wage from $2.30 to $5.00–
- Hattie Caraway was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. She was appointed in 1931 to fill the Arkansas seat left vacant by the death of her husband, and then elected in 1932 and re-elected in 1938–
- U.S. State Department denied passports to American Communist Party members–
- Batman made its television debut–
- Boeing 747 landed at Heathrow Airport in London after its first trans-atlantic proving flight from NY–
- All in the Family made its television debut–
- Swimmer Melvin Stewart set world record in 200-meter butterfly–
- Fictional Hal 9000 computer in film 2001: A Space Odyssey became operational–
- Launch of Deep Impact spacecraft to study comet Tempel 1–
- A 7.0-magnitude earthquake shook Haiti approximately 16 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince–
Weather
- Coldsnap that froze Columbia River on January 9th spawned Great Plains blizzard, 200 lives lost–
- Schoolchildren’s Blizzard in Great Plains killed 235 people–
- Record high of 57 degrees F in Helena, Montana–
- -35 degrees F in Chester, Massachusetts–
- Snowstorm of the century in southern Texas. San Antonio recorded more snow in 24 hours (nine inches) than was received during any entire winter in the previous 100 years. Total snowfall for the storm was 13.5 inches.–
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