November 13, 1931

Governor Harvey Parnell appointed Hattie Caraway to fill the vacancy left in the U.S. Senate caused by her husband’s death. Caraway went on to become the first woman elected to the Senate, the first woman to preside over the Senate, the first woman to chair a Senate committee, and the first woman to preside over a Senate hearing. She served from 1932 to 1945 and was a strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic recovery legislation during the Great Depression.