![]() ![]() ![]() A year after Congress created the service, Rogers spearheaded new legislation granting official military status to the volunteers as the Women’s Army Corps. Subsequently, she voted against the 1937 Neutrality Act, which isolationist Republican leaders favored, and for the Selective Service Act of 1940, which they opposed.Īs so-called WAACs, women held down jobs during the war as medical care professionals, welfare workers, clerks, cooks, messengers, military postal employees, chauffeurs and telephone and telegraph operators. In 1933, Rogers was one of the first members of Congress to speak out against Nazi persecution of the Jews. A Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts, has been named after her. She was one of the major drafters of the post-war GI Bill of Rights, and she sponsored the Korean War Veterans Benefits bill. In 1930, Rogers had persuaded Congress to appropriate the money to construct a nationwide network of veterans’ hospitals. When she began her 19th campaign in 1960, shortly before her death from a heart attack, she ran unopposed. Reelected 17 times, she spent 35 years in the House, making her the longest-serving woman in congressional history. She was the first woman from New England to be elected to Congress. ![]() In 1925, Rogers had succeeded her late husband, John Rogers, in the House. Edith Nourse Rogers, gave women, Rogers said, “a chance to volunteer to serve their country in a patriotic way.” The legislation, authored and introduced by Massachusetts Republican Rep. ![]()
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