March 27, 2007

With the death of Congressman William Oldfield in 1928, after he had been reelected for his tenth consecutive term, his wife, Fannie Pearl, was chosen to serve the remainder of his term in the Seventieth Congress. Pearl Oldfield was then elected in 1929, becoming the first Arkansas woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She served a rather uneventful term in the Seventy-first Congress and did not seek reelection.