Caraway, Hattie Ophelia Wyatt

(1878-1950)

   Hattie Caraway graduated from Dickson Normal College in Tennessee in 1896. She married Thaddeus Caraway in 1902, and they settled in Arkansas, where she raised three children. Thaddeus Caraway served first in the United States House of Representatives from 1912 and then in the United States Senate from 1921. When he died in 1931, Hattie Caraway was appointed to fill his vacant seat. She then became the first woman ever elected to the Senate when, supported by the Arkansas Democratic Party, she won a special election. In 1932, Hattie Caraway defeated six challengers in the Democratic primary and was reelected in her own right in 1932. Caraway won election again in 1938 and went on to become the first woman to preside over the Senate, first to conduct a Senate committee hearing, first to chair a committee, and first senior senator. She cosponsored the Equal Rights Amendment in 1943. She was defeated in the Democratic primary in 1944 by J. William Fulbright, who went on to win her seat. Caraway subsequently served on the Employees’ Compensation Commission and Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board.