REBECCA LATIMER FELTON

Background

Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton the daughter of Charles and Eleanor (Swift) Latimer, was born near Decatur, DeKalb County, Georgia. Her Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth (1919) contains reminiscences of her girlhood.

Education

She graduated from the Madison Female College in 1852.

Career

Her ability as a writer and speaker became generally recognized and, though never offering for public office herself, she became a rather important factor in state affairs. In her wellknown book, My Memoirs of Georgia Politics (1911), she left unflattering accounts of many important Georgians with whom she and her husband had contended, at the same time paying tribute to those who she felt were on the side of honest government and clean politics. A member of the board of lady managers of the Chicago Exposition (1893), chairman of the woman’s executive board of the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta (1894 - 95), a juror on the agricultural board of the St. Louis Exposition, and a member of numerous patriotic organizations, she had attained considerable, but chiefly local, prominence before her appointment to the United States Senate made her for the moment a national figure. Following the death of Senator Thomas E. Watson, in September 1922, and before the election of his successor, Walter F. George, in November, Governor Thomas W. Hardwick made a graceful gesture by giving Mrs. Felton on October 3 an ad interim appointment. Taking the oath of office November 21, she attended the session of that day and of November 22, when Senator George was sworn in. Surviving her four sons and her daughter, she lived until January 24, 1930, when she died in an Atlanta hospital. On the afternoon of the following day the Senate adjourned early out of respect for the first and until that time the only woman to become one of its members

Achievements

• For twenty-eight years she was a regular contributor to the tri-weekly edition of the Atlanta Journal, and through this medium exercised considerable influence in formulating public opinion in Georgia.

Works

More photos

• book

  • "My memoirs of Georgia politics,"

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth,: Also Addresses Before Georgia Legislature Women's Clubs, Women's Organizations and Other Noted Occasions,

Views

As her days lengthened (she died in her ninety-fifth year), her intellect remained undimmed, her interest in public matters persisted, and she was always ready to express in quite positive fashion her views on all sorts of questions, state, national, and international. Among the first to advocate equal political rights for women, an ardent temperance fighter long before prohibition became a national question, a champion of penal reform in Georgia, Mrs. Felton was generally to be found on the side of civic righteousness and progressive legislation.

Membership

She was a member of the board of lady managers of the Chicago Exposition (1893), chairman of the woman’s executive board of the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta (1894 - 95), a juror on the agricultural board of the St. Louis Exposition, and a member of numerous patriotic organizations.

Personality

He was an advanced liberal and waged a stubborn fight over many years with the conservative element of his party.

Connections

In 1853 she married to Dr. William Harrell Felton, who played a noteworthy role in Georgia politics.

husband:

William Harrell Felton