Arkansas’s Hattie Caraway, the first woman elected to serve in the U.S. Senate, is the topic of Dr. Nancy Hendricks’ talk at Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center’s monthly history lecture, on Wednesday, October 1, at noon in the Main Library’s Darragh Center. Copies of Hendricks’ book, Hattie Caraway: An Arkansas Legacy, will be available for sale; Hendricks will sign books after her talk.
Nancy Hendricks is the noted Hattie Caraway scholar and award-winning writer of the book Senator Hattie Caraway: An Arkansas Legacy and the play Miz Caraway and the Kingfish. She has previously been featured at the Arkansas Literary Festival.
Hattie Caraway served in the U.S. Senate from December 9, 1931 – January 3, 1945. She was appointed to as a placeholder following the death of her husband, Senator Thaddeus Caraway. In early 1932, she was supported in her bid to be elected to complete the remainder of this term. However, it was expected she would not seek election in November 1932 for a full term. She did, shocking the Democratic Party establishment in Arkansas. She won that term due in part to the campaigning of populist hero Senator Huey Long of Louisiana. In 1938, she was challenged in her bid for re-election by Rep. John L. McClellan. She defeated him (though he would go on to win the other Senate seat in the future and serve until his death in the 1970s). In 1944, she lost her bid for a third term to J. William Fulbright.
