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The Petticoat Politician: Alice Mary Robertson, Congress, and the Politics of Contradiction
Paperback
Biographies GeneralPolitical BiographiesWomen's Studies
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Aug 27 2026
Pages: 126
Weight: 0.36
Height: 0.32 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Part of A Dry Hypocrisy Series-forgotten true stories of power, privilege, and unequal enforcement in Prohibition-era Washington.
The Nineteenth Amendment opened the door. Alice Mary Robertson entered carrying contradictions that would define her place in history.Elected to Congress in 1920, Robertson became only the second woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives, and the first elected after women secured the constitutional right to vote. She would also become the first woman to preside over a House session.
Yet Robertson resisted much of the organized women's movement that made her election imaginable.
She championed soldiers and veterans while opposing the veterans' bonus. She built a career serving Native communities while participating in institutions shaped by assimilation and federal paternalism. She distrusted dependency while relying upon patronage, appointments, and public institutions throughout her own remarkable life.
Meanwhile, the same Capitol that celebrated her historic presence remained marked by another contradiction: lawmakers publicly defended Prohibition while an illegal liquor trade operated within their institutional world.
The Petticoat Politician: Alice Mary Robertson, Congress, and the Politics of Contradiction, follows Robertson from missionary work and public service to Congress, electoral defeat, hospital employment, and an ending far removed from the national attention that once surrounded her.
This is neither a simple celebration nor a modern indictment. It is the gripping story of a pioneering woman whose achievements and limitations existed side by side.
She opened a door without embracing the movement behind it and became a symbol of progress who refused to fit comfortably within its meaning.
Book Four of A Dry Hypocrisy Series.
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