activist politician suffragist
Jessie Annette Jack Hooper was born on November 8, 1865 in Winneshiek County, Iowa, United States. She was the second daughter of David and Mary Elizabeth (Nelings) Jack, who had both moved to Iowa from Pennsylvania before their marriage in 1860. The family was of Scotch and Scotch-Irish origins but had lived several generations in America. Hooper grew up in New Hampton, Iowa, a rather delicate girl, who spent one or two winters in the South for her health.
Hooper's education was necessarily informal.
Hooper visited Oshkosh and began to take an interest in the new community where she found herself. Oshkosh was a growing city, founded on the lumber trade, and having a large floating population. Hooper saw the need of charitable work and allied herself with the several patriotic and benevolent clubs of the city. Her first official position was that of regent of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1908-1909; as president of the Ladies Benevolent Society of Oshkosh she urged the visiting nurses movement and a tuberculosis sanitorium.
She had felt for some years the importance of suffrage for women. It was said that she was so eager for the ballot that her husband alternated his vote with one directed by her. In 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago she attended the international conference of women and heard Susan B. Anthony speak. She early joined the Wisconsin Woman's Suffrage Association, and she campaigned in the Wisconsin legislature for such reforms as the infancy and maternity bill, the children's code, and the raising of the age of consent. During the First World War she worked for suffrage and campaigned in Iowa and Wisconsin, often under very discouraging circumstances.
After the United States entered the war, Hooper helped to organize Wisconsin for women's war work, for liberty-loan campaigns, and for food conservation. The National Woman's Suffrage Association, however, determined to put forth a strong campaign in the national Congress and Hooper was called by Carrie Chapman Catt to lobby in Washington. At one period of the campaign Hooper returned to Wisconsin to secure two more congressional votes for suffrage. She succeeded by appealing to the congressmen's constituencies, and the suffrage bill passed the House of Representatives only to be lost in the Senate.
In 1919 the Nineteenth Amendment passed the United States Congress and was submitted to the states for ratification. Wisconsin was the first state to ratify the amendment. Hooper was then sent to Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona to campaign for ratification. After the success of the suffrage campaign, the League of Women voters was organized and Mrs. Hooper was the first president of the Wisconsin branch. In 1922 the latter organization decided to run a candidate for the United States Senate against Robert M. La Follette, then seeking reelection. The Democratic party nominated Hooper unsolicited and she made a valiant fight of six weeks, although she had small hope of success. She carried Milwaukee County, containing the largest urban population in the state.
Hooper called together at Buffalo delegates from nine national organizations of women to organize for peace. She persuaded Mrs. Catt to be their chairman, and they arranged for a national program at Washington, called the Conference for the Cause and Cure of War, the first assemblage of which was held in January 1925. Meetings were held in the successive years, and from 1929 to 1932 Hooper served as recording secretary. In the latter year she was chosen to carry to Geneva, Switzerland, a vast petition for international disarmament. At Geneva she broadcasted for the cause; after a visit to Paris and London she returned to her home in Oshkosh where she was given a great reception.
Her health had been undermined by her heavy exertions and after a period of failing strength she passed away in 1935.
Hooper was prominent in Wisconsin civic reform groups and women's organizations. She campaigned for a children's code in Wisconsin to raise the age of consent for girls, and for changes jury duty laws and the protection of women in industry. She also took an important part during World War I, and was one of the founders of the Conference on the Cause and Cure for War.
Hooper was a member of the state Democratic party.
Hooper was the president of the Ladies Benevolent Society of Oshkosh.
On a visit to her older sister at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Hooper met Ben Hooper, and they were married on May 30, 1888. They had one daughter, Lorna.
