If Kelly Loeffler fills outgoing U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson's seat as expected, she'll become the second woman to represent Georgia in that chamber of government.
Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton, born in 1835 in DeKalb County, served for 24 hours. Georgia Gov. Thomas Hardwick named her after Sen. Thomas E. Watson died in office on Sept. 26, 1922. Hardwick sought the seat for himself and thought appointing the then-87-year-old Felton would endear him to newly enfranchised women voters.
It didn't work out, though. Hardwick lost in a special election two weeks later to Walter F. George.
The Felton appointment came just over two years after the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1920, granting women the right to vote. Although she wasn’t in the U.S. Senate for long, she secured her place in history as its first female member.
FLASHBACK PHOTOS: 200 years of Georgia politics
Credit: Jennifer Brett
Credit: Jennifer Brett
At the end of her one-day term, Felton - a prolific author whose writings included a homemaking column called "The Country Home" in the Atlanta Journal - gave a speech expressing gratitude for the opportunity. In the address, she added her certainty that the women coming after her would serve with "ability," "integrity of purpose" and "unstinted usefulness," according to an article about her in the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
While she occupies notable if inadvertent chapter in the history of women’s suffrage her views on race were virulent.
“In an 1897 speech she said that the biggest problem facing women on the farm was the danger of black rapists,” the above New Georgia Encyclopedia article notes, quoting her as saying: “If it takes lynching to protect women's dearest possession from drunken, ravening beasts, then I say lynch a thousand a week."
Furthermore, she castigated those with progressive views on race, and played a key role in the ouster of Emory professor Andrew Sledd after he penned an article demanding legal and social rights for African-Americans, the above article states.
A graduate of Madison Female College, Felton was a close adviser to and speech-writer for her husband, William Felton, during his career in the state Legislature and U.S. Congress. They met when he gave the commencement address the year she graduated from college, as valedictorian.
Gov. Brian Kemp is expected to appoint the financial executive on Wednesday; Isakson is stepping down due to health concerns.
Incidentally, one of Kemp’s campaign stops while running for governor took him to the Rose Lawn Museum in Cartersville, which holds a collection of Felton’s papers. She is buried in Cartersville's Oak Hill Cemetery.
