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
Father of the Australian Senate of the then Father of the Senate, John Faulkner. The only Father of the Senate with broken service but whose latter period of continuous service was sufficiently long to qualify was Sir Walter Cooper. Annabelle Rankin was a joint Father of the Senate, from 1 July 1968 to 24 May 1971, the only female to achieve that status. The possibility of a woman becoming a longest-serving senator was not provided for in "Australian Senate Practice", and there has still been no move to amend the text or title to this day. The first Senate was elected on 29 and 30