Anson County, NC - Eliza Jane Pratt, 1902-1981

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Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1949
Biographies
page 1700

PRATT, Eliza Jane, a Representative from North Carolina; born in 
Morven, Anson County, N.C., March 5, 1902; attended the public schools 
of Morven and Raeford, N.C., and Queens College at Charlotte, N.C.; 
newspaper editor at Troy, N.C., in 1923 and 1924; served as secretary 
to Members of Congress from the Eighth Congressional District of North 
Carolina 1924-1946; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-ninth Congress 
to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William O. Burgin and served 
from May 25, 1946, to January 3, 1947; was not a candidate for 
renomination in 1946; employed with the Office of Alien Property, 
Washington, D.C., since May 27, 1947; is a resident of Lexington, N.C.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eliza Jane Pratt (1902 - 1981) was a U.S. Representative from North 
Carolina, the first woman to represent her state in the U.S. Congress.

A native of Anson County, North Carolina, Pratt worked as a newspaper 
editor in Troy, North Carolina before being hired as a secretary for 
Congressman Robert L. Doughton in 1924. She then served Doughton and 
his successors in North Carolina's 8th congressional district for the 
next twenty-two years: J. Walter Lambeth and William O. Burgin.

When Burgin died in office in 1946, Pratt was elected as a Democrat to 
fill the vacancy. She served from May 25, 1946, to January 3, 1947 and 
was not a candidate in the 1946 general election.

Pratt went on to a variety of federal government jobs and again became 
a secretary for a member of Congress, Alvin Paul Kitchin, from 1957 
through 1962.

No woman would be elected again to Congress from North Carolina until 
Eva M. Clayton was elected in 1992.