Artifacts
This Visitor’s Gallery pass dates from 1917, the year Jeannette Rankin of Montana first entered Congress as its first and only woman Member. During her first floor debate on women’s suffrage, she challenged her fellow Members asking, “How shall we explain…the meaning of democracy if the same Congress that voted to make the world safe for democracy refuses to give this small measure of democracy to the women of our country?”
Visitor’s Gallery Pass, 1917, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives