Characteristics of Female Representatives in Pennyslvania.¹⁶

• In the Pennsylvania General Assembly, there are a total of 68 women.
• Of that 68, 55 are members of the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives; they make up 26% of the House.
• The State Senate has 50 members, 13 are women, putting the percentage of women in the State Senate at 26.9%.
• Women legislators make up 1/4 of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

Return to top

Pennsylvania Women in State Executive Positions¹⁹

Statewide Elective Executives (Total Positions: 5)

• * Kelly was appointed as Attorney General, not elected.
• ¹ Hafer was elected as a Republican, and changed to a Democrat in 5/2004.

Return to top

Women in Govenor's Executive Staff

Return to top

Women Cabinet Officials

Return to top

Pennsylvania Women Elected to U.S. Congress¹⁸

U.S. Congress (Total Seats: 2 U.S. Senators, 18 U.S. Representatives)

• ¹ Granahan concurrently won a special election to fill a vacancy caused by the death of her husband and a regular election.
• ² Buchanan won a special election to fill a vacancy caused by the death of her husband; she was subsequently re-elected.
• ³ Boland won a special election to fill a vacancy caused by the death of her husband.

Return to top

Historical Look at Women in the Pennsylvania State Legislature²⁰

Return to top

Women in Pennsylvania Senate Leadership Positions²¹

Return to top

Women in Pennsylvania House of Representatives Leadership Positions²²

Return to top

Women Officers of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives

Return to top

Women Officers of the Pennsylvania Senate

Return to top

Women of Color¹⁷

• Charlotte Vandine Forten (1786-1886) and her family lobbied for the abolition of slavery by hosting anti-slavery gatherings, writing for publications, and encouraging elites to join the cause.
• March 28,1867: Caroline LeCount was illegally denied entrenance to ride a Philadelphia public streetcar. She obtained a copy of the legislation, and presented it to the magistrate. The streetcar conductor who denied her entrenance was arrested and fined $100, and LeCount secured Black's right to ride streetcars.
• 1912: Daisy E. Lampkin hosted women's rights tea in her home before joining the Negro Women's Equal Franchise Federation where she campaigned for women's right to vote. Later, she chaired the Allegheny County Negro Women's Republican League, served as vice-chair of the Negro Voters League of Pennsylvania, and vice chair of the Colored Voters Division of the Republican National Committee.
• 1914-1917: Ruth L. Bennett opened the Home for Negro Girls, for girls and women who recently arrived from the South during the Great Migration.
• 1930: Lampkin became the first field secretary for the NAACP, and is credited with increasing membership more than any other executive in the organization.
• 1938: Crystal Bird Faust was the first African American female legislator to be elected in the United States, in addition to working as a race relations specialist, social worker, and civil rights activist.
• March 1965: C. Delores Tucker (1927-2005), joined Martin Luther King Jr. in his march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama. She helped found the National Political Congress of Black Women.
• 1971: Tucker became the first African American to serve as Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She was also the first African American woman in the nation to be Secretary of State.

Return to top

Political Groups¹⁵

• 1920: The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania was established, a successor organization to the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association. The LWV povides education to "increase the effectiveness of women voters and to further better government
• 1923, Pennsylvania State Council of Republican Women was founded
• 1927, Federation of Democratic Women was formed
• 1972, Governor Milton J. Shapp created the Pennsylvania Commission for Women
• 1981, Pennsylvania Elected Women's Association was formed
• 1982, Pennsylvania Women's Campaign Fund was founded

Return to top

Political Firsts¹⁴

• 1922: The first women were elected to the State House. All Republicans, they were: Sarah Gerturde MacKinney, Alice M. Bentley, Rosa S. DeYoung, Sarah McCunde Gallagher, Helen Grimes, Lillie H. Pitts, Martha G. Speiser, and Martha G. Thomas
• 1923-1928: Representative Alice M. Bentley served as Speaker Pro Tempore, the first woman to do so.
• 1930: Lilith Martin Wilson became the first woman Socialist to be elected to the State House
• 1932: The first woman Democrat was elected to the State House: Anna M. Brancato.
• 1938: Crystal Bird Faust was the first African American female legislator to be elected in the United States, in addition to working as a race relations specialist, social worker, and civil rights activist.
• 1995: Sandra Schultz Newman was the first woman elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
• 2012: Kathleen Kane was elected as Attorney General, the first woman elected to this position.

Return to top

Political History

• Early Republic
  • 1984: An Act from Congress granted honorary United States citizenship to Hannah Callowhill Penn (1671-1726), wife of William Penn.
  • 1985: Hannah Callowhill Penn and William Penn received honorary citizenship of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
• Anti Slavery
  • 1833: Lucretia Mott, a Quaker preacher and teacher, helped form the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. Later, she was president of the Female Anti-Slavery Society.
  • 1848: Jane Grey Swisshelm launched The Saturday Visiter, an abolitionist and womens' rights paper. Her essays influenced the state legislature to grant married women the right to own property.
• Suffrage
  • 1868: Pennsylvania Women's Suffrage Association was founded in Philadelphia, a hotbed of feminist agitation.
  • July 4, 1876: Susan B. Anthony read her famous "Declaration of Rights for Women" at the Washington statue in front of Independence Hall.⁸
  • 1913: The General Assembly approved a women's suffrage amendment to the state Constitution.
  • 1915: Male voters rejected the amendment by 55,000 votes.
  • June 4, 1919: the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was approved by Congress.¹⁰
  • June 14, 1919: Pennsylvania became the seventh state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.¹¹

Return to top

• ¹ Pennsylvania State Legislature, “Pennsylvania History”
  http://www.legis.state.pa.us/wu01/vc/visitor_info/pa_history/whole_pa_history.htm
• ² Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ³ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ⁴ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ⁵ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ⁶ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ⁷ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ⁸ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ⁹ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ¹⁰ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ¹¹ Pennsylvania State Legislature
• ¹² Schmedlen, Jeanne Hearn. “History of Women in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives 1923-2008” Office of Speaker of the House Dennis M. O’Brien.
• ¹³ Schmedlen, Jeanne Hearn
• ¹⁴ Schmedlen, Jeanne Hearn
• ¹⁵ Schmedlen, Jeanne Hearn
• ¹⁶ Schmedlen, Jeanne Hearn
• ¹⁷ Patrick, Leslie “African American and Civil Rights in Pennsylvania” in Black History in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Commonwealth 
• ¹⁸ Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University, http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/index.php
• ¹⁹ Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University, http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/index.php
• ²⁰ Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University, http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/index.php
• ²¹ Senate Historical Biographies Archive, Pennsylvania State Senate, http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/BiosHistory/index.cfm?body=S
• ²¹ House Historical Biographies Archive, Pennsylvania House of Representatives, http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/BiosHistory/index.cfm?body=h

Return to top