OPINION —
In 1992, I wrote a historical series at Fort McClellan, Alabama, on the Women’s Army Corps. These were amazing women, but one I met at a band concert in 2021 was 100 years old and in fine shape. She was one of the first women who trained at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, in the early 1940s.
Many WACs in 1992 told me: “I break starch twice a day.” They went back home or to a barracks to change into fresh uniforms. This moment, too, has amazing women in the U.S. Senate, where 25 of the 100 senators are women. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) arrived this year, but she already serves as an advisor to Sen. Mitch McConnell, minority leader.
Britt recently criticized reporters at a border site for ignoring the crisis in which 2,000 or more migrants a day are entering the U.S. illegally. The number of migrants detained in September was a high of 22,000. (That is equal to — respectively — the populations of Mountain Brook, Alabama (22,871); Albertville, Alabama (22,632); and Oxford, Alabama (22,213).
“When a woman sits there and tells you not just about being raped but how many times a day she’s raped, when she tells you about having to lay in that bed while they come in and out it’s disgusting and it’s despicable,” Britt said. “Folks, you look at the number of people that have died at the border because (President) Joe Biden has made it more and more enticing to come here.”
She noted that CBP agents are exhausted by the huge number of migrants, the administrative tasks and their primary work of protecting the borders.
“When they tell you about finding small children who drowned in that river or pulling a lifeless body of a woman who was pregnant with twins, it changes the way you think about what’s happening,” she said.
When Sen. Dianne Feinstein died after a pioneering 30-year Senate career, Britt wasted no time in praising the California Democrat.
“She was a true trailblazer, paving the way for the women who serve in the Senate today and inspiring young girls across our country,” Britt said. “It’s not lost on me that I wouldn’t be where I am now without decades of sacrifices by pioneers like her. When confronted with tragedy and tribulations throughout her career, she was fearless.”
Rebecca Felton of Decatur, Georgia, was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. But there was a twist — a unique honor that her many admirers had arranged. The most eminent woman in Georgia in the Progressive Era, she was honored near the end of her life by a symbolic one-day appointment as senator.
She was sworn in on Nov. 21, 1922, and served just 24 hours. At age 87, she was the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate. Felton died one day after she turned 100. She was a writer, activist and slave owner. Felton was the first women U.S. senator for Georgia, and it took almost 98 years for a new woman senator, the appointment of Kelly Loeffler in 2020.
Both women appointed to the Senate from Alabama served for about five months but were heroines anyway. They cracked open the Senate that decades later would welcome Britt, the first elected woman sent to the Upper House from Alabama. Dixie Bibb Graves was the first woman from Alabama appointed to the Senate, on Aug. 20, 1937.
Dixie was born on a family plantation in Montgomery, in 1882. The state’s first lady, she was appointed to the Senate by her husband, Gov. Bibb Graves. She served as a U.S. senator from Aug. 20, 1937, through Jan. 10, 1938. She was the first married woman to serve in the Senate (all the others had been widows).
“She reverted back from senator to first lady of Alabama with the greatest of ease; cutting ribbons at grand openings of pilgrimages and public gardens and speaking at various functions,” was a description by a journalist of Dixie.
She enjoyed the Senate, but returning to the state her husband governed was a thrill.
Next week, in Part 2 of this “Women in the Senate” series, the colorful second lady appointed to the U.S. Senate from Alabama gets a short biography. Also, a look at Sen. John Sparkman’s vice president campaign in 1952 and Gov. George Wallace’s four races for president.
Greg Markley moved to Lee County in 1996. He has a master’s in education from AUM and a masters in history from Auburn University. He taught politics as an adjunct in Georgia and Alabama. An award-winning writer in the Army and civilian life, he has contributed to the Observer since 2011. He writes on politics, education and books. gm.markley@charter.net
Alabama Women in the U.S. Senate — Part 1
