Caraway, Hattie Ophelia Wyatt << KAR uh way, HAT tee oh FEEL yuh WY uht >> (1878-1950), was the first woman elected to the United States Senate. Caraway, a Democrat, was also the first woman to head a Senate committee. In 1943, she became the first woman to preside over a Senate session.
Hattie Wyatt was born on Feb. 1, 1878, and raised on a farm near Bakersville, Tennessee, southwest of Waverly. She received a B.A. degree from Dickson Normal School. In 1920, her husband, Thaddeus, a lawyer, was elected to the U.S. Senate from Arkansas. He died in 1931, and Governor Harvey Parnell of Arkansas appointed Caraway to replace her husband. In a special election in January 1932, she was elected to serve the remaining year of the term. In November 1932, she was reelected to a full six-year term.
Caraway served in the Senate from 1931 to 1945. She was defeated in the Democratic primary election for her Senate seat in 1944. She died in Falls Church, Virginia, on Dec. 21, 1950.
