A stumbled-upon slice of Georgia history: women, voting, racism, and the U. S. Senate

Here's a small historical note that I stumbled upon today while searching for something else on the internet.   It involves Georgia politics, the Progressive Era, women's right to vote, and a number of interesting details that might surprise those who think of Georgia only in its current red-state, conservative, and often luddite image.   So I thought this brief historical note would make an interesting change of pace from Ferguson's police tactics, Iraq and ISIS, Israel and Palestine, beheadings and airstrikes.

With the adoption of the 19th amendment to the U. S. Constitution on August 26, 1920, women won the right to vote and to hold public office in the United States.   On October 3, 1922 Rebecca Latimer Felton was appointed by Georgia's Gov. Thomas Hardwick to fill the U. S. Senate seat that had suddenly become vacant due to the untimely death of Sen. Tom Watson.    Rebecca Felton, at the age of 87, became the first woman United States senator.   She was from Georgia -- and she served only one day.

Imagine all that !!     The details make an interesting story in themselves.

Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835-1930) was a writer, a lecturer, a reformer, and the most prominent woman in Georgia in the Progressive Era.  Her husband represented a Georgia district in the U. S. House of Representatives, and she managed his campaigns.  She championed voting rights, equal pay, and education for women, as well as prison reforms.   

However, she was also a confirmed racist.  This crusader for women's suffrage was opposed to voting rights for blacks;   she opposed educating black males, saying it would lead them to rape white women.   She even once spoke in favor of lynching 1,000 black men a week, if necessary, to protect white women.

There's irony in the fact that Rebecca Felton was a leader in the women's suffrage movement, and she was appointed to the U.S. Senate seat by Gov. Thomas Hardwick, who had opposed the 19th amendment.    But political expediency trumps almost anything.

When Sen. Tom Watson died suddenly in 1921, Georgia Gov. Thomas Hardwick had the opportunity to appoint someone to fill the seat until a successor was chosen in a special election.   Watson himself planned to run for the position, and he didn't want to appoint someone who might be a competitor in the special election.    Besides, appointing a woman might help him win the votes of Georgia's newly enfranchised women.

On October 3, 1922, Hardwick appointed Felton to the U. S. Senate, expecting that she would never actually serve because the senate was in recess until after the special election to replace Watson.   His political calculation was that he would get credit with women for appointing a woman, he would eliminate a possible competitor, and she would never actually be sworn in anyway.

Ironies abound here.  Hardwick was not in fact elected.   Walter George won the special election.    He responded to a spirited campaign by the women of Georgia to allow Felton to be sworn in.   The gentlemanly George delayed his own swearing in by a day to allow Felton to actually be sworn in on November 21st.    She thus served for one day, from November 21-22, 1922; and then Walter George was sworn in on November 22 and served with great distinction as Georgia's senator for 37 years.

One further irony in this snapshot of Georgia political history:   Rebecca Latimar Felton was the first woman in the U. S. Senate.   She was also the last U. S. senator who had actually been a slave owner prior to the emancipation.

It's amazing what you can stumble upon while noodling around on Wikipedia.

Ralph