HATTIE WYATT CARAWAY

Submitted by Keithe Bisnett

In 1932 Hattie Wyatt Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. 

Born in Bakersville, Tennessee in 1878 the daughter of William Carroll Wyatt, a farmer and shopkeeper, and Lucy Mildred Burch.  At the age of four she moved with her family to Hustburg, Tennessee.  After briefly attending Ebenezer College in Hustburg, she transferred to Dickson Normal College, where she received her B.A. degree in 1896.  She taught school for a time before marrying in 1902 Thaddeus Horatius Caraway, whom she had met in college; they had three children, Paul, Forrest and Robert.  The couple moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas where she cared for their children and home and her husband practiced law and started a political career.

Thaddeus Caraway was elected to congress in 1912, and he served in that office until 1921 when he was elected to the United States Senate.  Like many in the South at that time, the Caraways were Democrats.

When her husband died unexpectedly in November 1931, she won a special election for his Senate seat on January 12, 1932. This made her the first woman elected to the US Senate, but everyone expected that she would serve as a caretaker until the regularly scheduled elections later that year. Caraway surprised them, though: while setting another precedent by presiding over the Senate on May 9th, 1932, she announced that she would be running for re-election.  She told reporters, “The time has passed when a woman should be placed in a position and kept there only while someone else is being groomed for the job.”

American was in the depths of the Great Depression in 1932, and that year’s election probably was the most important of the century.  Along with other New Deal Democrats, Caraway won; her chief support came from women, labor union members, and veterans.  World War 1 veterans admired Senator Caraway because she stood up for them early that year, when they demonstrated for bonuses and President Herbert Hoover sent the military to force them out of Washington. 

Caraway’s Senate committee assignments included Agriculture and Forestry, Commerce, and Enrolled Bills and Library, which she chaired.  She sustained a special interest in relief for farmers, flood control, and veterans’ benefits, all of direct concern to her constituents, and cast her votes for nearly every New Deal measure.  Her loyalty to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, did not extend to racial issues, and in 1938 she joined fellow southerners in a filibuster against the administration’s anti-lynching bill.  Although she carefully prepared herself for Senate work, Caraway spoke infrequently and rarely made speeches on the floor of the Senate but built a reputation as an honest and sincere Senator.  She was sometimes portrayed by patronizing reporters as “Silent Hattie” or “the quiet grandmother who never said anything or did anything.”  She explained her reticence as unwillingness “to take a minute away from the men.  The poor dears love it so.”

In 1938 Caraway entered a tough fight for reelection, challenged by Representative John L. McClellan, who argued that a man could more effectively promote the state’s interests.  With backing from government employees, women’s groups, and unions, Caraway won a narrow victory. 

In 1943 Caraway became the first woman legislator to cosponsor the Equal Rights Amendment.

In her bid for reelection in 1944, Caraway placed a poor fourth in the Democratic primary, losing her Senate seat to freshman congressman J. William Fulbright, the young, dynamic former president of the University of Arkansas who had already gained a national reputation.  Roosevelt then appointed her to the Employees’ Compensation Commission, and in 1946 President Harry Truman gave her a post on the Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board, where she served until suffering a stroke in January 1950.  She died in Falls Church, Virginia, and was buried in West Lawn Cemetery in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

References:  Wikipedia, Women Wielding Power: Pioneer Female State Legislators.