The Caucus Blog of the Illinois House Republicans

U.S. Rep. Winifred Sprague Mason Huck was the first wife and mother elected to Congress.
She was also the first Illinois woman to serve as a U.S. Representative. 

In the years following the “War to End All Wars,” hopes for a genuine and lasting world peace prevailed throughout America and the world. During the “Return to Normalcy” years of the Harding Administration, America turned inward, eager to put behind it the horrors of the recent war that had so devastated Europe. While political leaders sought to make progress toward a lasting peace abroad, a leading domestic political movement was the continuing drive for women’s equality. It was these two causes which would converge in 1922 with the election of Winnifred Sprague Mason Huck (R-Chicago) as Illinois’ first female Member of Congress.