May 12, 2012

In 1992, Helena (Phillips County) native Blanche Lincoln made history when she became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress from the state’s First District. Six years later, she once again made history when, at age thirty-two, she became the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate and only the second female U.S. senator from Arkansas. Considered a moderate Democrat, she served on several Senate committees and chaired the Senate Hunger Caucus. In 2000, she co-authored, with the eight other women in the Senate, the book Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate.