Barring one two-year term when he lost his election, Julius Kahn was a Congressional Representative from San Francisco from 1899 to his death in December 1924. He had already been re-elected to serve in the subsequent Congress; in the special election to fill his seat, his wife Florence Kahn was elected.
She and Mary Norton were the fifth and sixth women elected to the House; she was the first Jewish woman in Congress and the second woman to win re-election to Congress1, serving 6 terms from 1925-1937.
At a time when other Republicans were arguing for isolationism and military reduction, characterizing Democrats as war mongers, she was a steadfast supporter of military strength, saying “Preparedness never caused a war, un–preparedness never prevented one.” She was the first woman on the Military Affairs Committee, on the Appropriations Committee, and the first woman on the board of the US Naval Academy. She introduced the legislation leading to Moffett Air Field, the Alameda Naval Air Station, and federal funding for the Bay Bridge. For her support of widening the FBI’s authority, Hoover called her the mother of the FBI.
Why in heck is there no biography of this woman?
Footnotes:
Wikipedia calls her the first woman to win re-election, apparently discounting Mae Nolan’s re-election because her first term, by special election, was only three months.