Jeannette Rankin (photo: Montana Historical Society) Rankin Hall is named for Jeannette Rankin, the UM grad (1902) who became the first woman elected to Congress. Rankin is shown in the photo, speaking from the balcony of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Standing behind her is suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt. Date April 2, 1917. Rankin was greeting a crowd of admirers en route to her swearing in. After the ceremony, President Woodrow Wilson asked the new Congress to declare war on Germany. Rankin cast one of the few votes against that declaration and lost her seat at the next election. Ironically, she returned to Congress later, just in time to cast the only vote against the declaration of the Second World War.
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