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Reviews
JEANNETTE RANKIN: A POLITICAL WOMAN
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by James Lopach and Jean A. Luckowski
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University Press of Colorado, Boulder, 2005.
Photographs, bibliography, index. 328 pages.
$34.95 cloth. |
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| In this highly readable account, we learn that Jeannette Rankin is not merely the feminist trailblazer and pacifist icon of popular mythology but a human being "driven by a demon ... her desire for fame and influence" (p. 1). The authors' familiarity with Montana and Montana sources has yielded the most comprehensive examination yet of Rankin's complex personality, circumstances, and personal and political choices. This is not, however, the definitive biography. Some of the most intriguing insights about Rankin's family relationships, political ambitions, and sexual orientation are based on confidential, undocumented interviews. While one can understand why family members might want their unflattering comments to remain anonymous, the reader is left with no way to examine the source's perspective. More importantly, the effort to explain Rankin's place in twentieth-century feminism and pacifism does not situate her fully in the historical context that influenced her choices and limited her options. |
1
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Frustrated by heroic accounts of Rankin's life and mysterious gaps in the record, the authors move quickly beyond the familiar story and develop several claims: family was central to her identity, providing considerable opportunities as well as constraints; the women's world of social reform and progressive politics sustained her personally and politically; the suffrage movement was pivotal in the development of her political skills and ideas; campaigning was her strength and her passion; her first term in office disappointed both herself and others; her essentialist view of women and her uncompromising pacifism rendered her second term ineffective; contradictions in her personal and political life diminished her legacy; and "her successes and flaws can be explained by the fact that she was a Rankin first and a radical second" (p. x). |
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Among many intriguing insights about Rankin's family, her brother Wellington emerges as a generous, demanding, unscrupulous politician and businessman who was, like his sister, ambitious and self-centered. His financial support facilitated Rankin's political campaigns and life as an independent woman. It also anchored her in a "rural orthodoxy" at odds, according to the authors, with her attraction to the radical ideas of Katharine Anthony, her partner Elisabeth Irwin, and others (p. 208). While a thorough examination of Rankin's interactions with like-minded women adds considerable depth to our understanding of her personal life, the meaning of the tension between being a Rankin and a radical remains obscure. The effort to define that tension produces a fascinating exploration of Heterodoxy, a club founded in 1912 by self-consciously rebellious New York women who met regularly for two decades, but the evidence of Rankin's involvement is thin. We might have benefited from a similar exploration of the New York School of Philanthropy, which Rankin attended from 1908 to 1909. Missing entirely is a discussion of Rankin's place in the evolving women's political culture identified by historians Paula Baker and Melanie Gustafson or the gendered changes in twentieth-century politics explored by political scientists Jo Freeman and Kristi Andersen. |
3
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Chapters on suffrage and political campaigning add new insights on Rankin's personal style and examine her rhetorical strategies at length. The discussion of maternalist, racist, and nativist arguments is crucial for understanding Rankin's response to the rhetorical exigencies of her time, yet Nancy Cott reminds us that tactical and strategic choices may not convey one's deepest beliefs. One wonders how the authors would engage Sara Hayden's discussion of Rankin's adaptation to different audiences and Paula Petrik's analysis of historical circumstances that explain shifting attitudes in Montana toward suffrage and progressive causes. |
4
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This is the fullest account to date of Rankin's activities in office, her developing attitudes toward war, her evolving position on labor issues, the inner workings of her staff, her roles in various progressive and pacifist causes between and after her terms in office, her independence from public opinion, and, most significantly, inconsistencies in her thoughts and actions. "What emerges from her story," the authors conclude, "is a struggle between the flawed and the noble: cheapness as well as the common good, arrogance as well as democratic spirit, meanness as well as lofty ideas, and self-preoccupation as well as public service" (p. 225) . The willingness to identify paradoxes and inconsistencies succeeds in humanizing a hero, but does it distinguish Rankin from other political leaders? Even Gandhi has his critics. |
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Readers will appreciate the complex personality that emerges from these pages. Subsequent research may not reveal substantially new evidence, but the need to ponder the meaning of her life and legacy will continue. That legacy must be measured not only by what she did or did not do but also by the circumstances she faced. Scholars may find the claim that her identity as a Rankin trumped her radical principles to be a psychological explanation that begs for deeper consideration of the historical circumstances that shaped and constrained her choices. |
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| Kathryn Anderson
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| Western Washington University, Bellingham |
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