John Rankin Research Paper

Rankin was born on June 11, 1880 in Missoula, Montana. She was the oldest of seven siblings. Her mother, Olive Pickering, was an elementary school teacher. Her father, John Rankin was a victorious rancher and lumber businessman. He passed away in 1904, shortly after Jeannette graduated from University of Montana in 1902. When Jeannette’s father died she assumed the responsibility for five sisters and her brother, to whom she grew very close and who aided her in many of her future political attempt. On a trip to visit her brother at Harvard in 1904, she became aware of the dirty city conditions. As she traveled through Boston, New York, and Chicago she witnessed the clear contrast between the poverty of the urban people and the wealth

of the privileged few. She decided to throw herself into getting a second degree, this time in the field of social work. Rankin worked temporarily as a teacher and a social worker before jumping into politics and the women’s suffrage movement. She was the first woman to speak before the Montana legislature, urging them to give women the right to vote. In 1912 she became the field secretary for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Thousands of suffragettes marched in Washington, D.C. demanding the vote. She returned home to help organize the campaign to win the right to vote for women in the state of Montana, which happened in 1914.