Rebecca Felton
First Woman US Senator
November 21, 1922

Years of Service: 1922-1922
Party: Democrat

FELTON, Rebecca Latimer, (wife of William Harrell Felton), a Senator from Georgia; born near Decatur, De Kalb County, Ga., June 10, 1835; attended the common schools and graduated from the Madison Female College in 1852; moved to Bartow County, Ga., in 1854; taught school; writer, lecturer, and reformer with special interest in agricultural and women’s issues; served as secretary to her husband while he was a Member of Congress 1875-1881; appointed by the Governor as a Democrat to the United States Senate on October 3, 1922, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Thomas E. Watson and served just two days, November 21 and 22, 1922, a successor having been elected; was not a candidate for election to fill the vacancy; the first woman to occupy a seat in the United States Senate; the Senator who, having served one day, served the shortest term; and the oldest Senator, at age eighty-seven, at the time of first swearing-in; engaged as a writer and lecturer and resided in Cartersville, Ga., until her death in Atlanta, Ga., January 24, 1930; interment in Oak Hill Cemetery, Cartersville, Ga.

Dictionary of American Biography; Felton, Rebecca L.My Memories of Georgia Politics. Atlanta: Index Printing Co., 1911; Talmadge, John E. Rebecca Latimer Felton: Nine Stormy Decades. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1960.

-- Biographical Data courtesy of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress