Jeannette Rankin Day Petition
Sign the petition to express your support for establishing a national Jeannette Rankin Day!
The Jeannette Rankin Foundation together with Lorissa Rinehart, women’s historian and author of Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress, is working to honor Jeannette Rankin with a national day of recognition.
Born on a ranch in Montana, Rankin achieved what few thought possible: In November 1916, four years before women had the national right to vote, she won a seat in the United States Congress and changed the course of American history.
November 2026 marks the 110th anniversary of Rankin’s historic election. As our country commemorates its 250th anniversary, this is a fitting moment to recognize the women who shaped our democracy. We are asking the United States Senate to designate November 10, 2026, as Jeannette Rankin Day with a Senate Simple Resolution and the U.S. House of Representatives to lift her voice, restore her rightful place in our nation’s story and shine a light on America’s rich tradition of women leaders. For that, we need your support.
Your signature provides that support. Please sign below today.
Rankin dedicated her life to:
As the first woman elected not only to Congress but to federal office, Jeannette Rankin opened the door for generations of women to serve at every level of public office. She famously declared, “I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last.”
And in Congress, Rankin built on her work for women’s suffrage in Montana and across the nation to advance the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, a critical step toward its ratification as the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women nationwide the right to vote. She also introduced the Rankin-Robinson bill, the first federal legislation ever proposed to fund women’s healthcare.
Rankin’s final act created her enduring legacy: in her will, Rankin left a bequest that founded the Jeannette Rankin Foundation in 1976. Today, the Rankin Foundation invests in nontraditional women and nonbinary students across all 50 states, providing unrestricted Scholar Grants and wraparound services that support Scholars in achieving their first college degree later in life.
Rankin spent her lifetime working to make every vote count and to ensure more Americans had a voice in their democracy. Before entering politics, she campaigned for women’s suffrage across the country, helping build the movement that would transform American democracy. And as the first woman elected to Congress, she was the only woman to vote to give women the constitutional right to vote.
Rankin understood that democracy is strongest when everyone can participate, and her efforts to expand political representation helped lay important groundwork for later movements that sought to extend civil rights and voting rights to all Americans.
Jeannette Rankin voted against entry into World War I in 1917 and spent the next two decades trying to make sure it never happened again. Between 1919 and 1941, she campaigned tirelessly for peace and disarmament with a specificity and strategic vision that went far beyond protest. She helped draft an alternative to the Treaty of Versailles that called for self-determination for all colonized peoples, universal enfranchisement for women and the establishment of an international governing body capable of resolving conflicts without resorting to war. She lobbied for the Ludlow Amendment, which would have required a national popular vote before any declaration of war, returning the most consequential decision a democracy can make directly to the people who would pay for it with their lives. And she worked relentlessly to limit the growing influence of the military industrial complex, warning with a clarity that still cuts: “If you prepare for war, you will get war. If you prepare for peace, you will get peace.”
When Congress voted to enter World War II on December 8, 1941, Rankin cast the only dissenting vote, the sole member of either house to vote against both World Wars. She was vilified for it. She never apologized. Her no vote was the culmination of 20 years of serious, sustained work. She believed, to her last breath, that those with the least power bear the heaviest cost of war and that a democracy worthy of the name owes them an accounting before it sends them to die.
SIGN THE PETITION
Please sign and share the petition with everyone who believes women’s history is American history, democracy honors those who built it and peace is worth championing. Your support will be presented to members of Congress as we advocate for Jeannette Rankin’s national recognition.