Women in the United States Senate After retiring from the Senate, she married former Senator Howard Baker (R-TN). Kassebaum has the distinction of being the first female elected senator who did not succeed her husband in Congress (Margaret Chase Smith was only elected to the Senate after succeeding her husband to his House seat). At the time of her retirement in 1997, Kassebaum was the second longest serving female senator, after Smith (Since 1997 five women have had Senate careers longer than Kassebaum's). The first woman in the Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton, who served representing Georgia for only one day in 1922. Hattie Caraway became
Women in the United States Senate having previously served in Congress. Since 1978, there has always been at least one woman in the Senate. The first woman to be elected to the Senate without any family connections was Paula Hawkins (R-FL), elected in 1980. There were still few women in the Senate near the end of the 20th century, long after women began to make up a significant portion of the membership of the House. The trend of few women in the Senate began to change in the wake of the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings, and the subsequent election of the 103rd United States