SANDY KOZEL

Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway
(February 1, 1878 – December 21, 1950)

Caraway became the first woman elected to serve a full term as
a United States Senator. Caraway represented Arkansas. She was
the first woman to preside over the Senate. She won re- election to a
full term in 1932 with the active support of fellow Senator  Huey Long
of neighboring Louisiana, She was the first woman to win an election
for the United States Senate.

On January 8, 1835, President Andrew Jackson achieves his goal of entirely paying off the United States’ national debt. It was the only
time in U.S. history that the national debt stood at zero, and it precipitated one of the worst financial crises in American history.

The elimination of the national debt was both a personal issue for Jackson and the culmination of a political project as old as the
nation itself. Since the time of the Revolution, American politicians
had argued over the wisdom of the nation carrying debt. After independence, the federal government agreed to take on individual states’ war debts as part of the unification of the former colonies. Federalists, those who favored a stronger central government, established a national bank and argued that debt could be a useful
way of fueling the new country’s economy. Their opponents, most notably Thomas Jefferson,  saw the debt as a source of national
shame.

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845)

Congress set January 7, 1789 as the date by which states are
required to choose electors for the country’s first presidential 
election. A month later, on February 4, George Washington was 
elected president by state electors and sworn into office (above) 
on April 30, 1789.

George Washington 1789 Election Poster.

On January 4, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered the
first televised evening State of the Union Address.

Johnson laid out for Congress a laundry list of legislation needed
to achieve his plan for a Great Society.

As a result Congress enacted sweeping legislation in the areas of
civil rights, health care, education and the environment. 

The 1965 State of the Union address heralded the creation of Medicare/Medicaid, Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil
Rights Act, the Department of Housing and Urban Development
and the White House Conference on Natural Beauty.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Voting Rights
Act of 1965.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (L), founder of the March
of Dimes to fight polio, is shown at the White House with
Basil O’Connor, who worked with the president in forming
the charity.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an adult victim of polio, founded the
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which he later renamed
the March of Dimes Foundation, on January 3, 1938. A predominantly childhood disease in the early 20th century, polio wreaked havoc
among American children every summer. The virus, which affects
the central nervous system, flourished in contaminated food and
water and was easily transmitted. Those who survived the disease
usually suffered from debilitating paralysis into their adult lives. In
1921, at the relatively advanced age of 39, Roosevelt contracted
polio and lost the use of his legs. With the help of the media, his
Secret Service and careful event planning, Roosevelt managed to
keep his disease out of the public eye, yet his personal experience inspired in him an empathy with the handicapped and prompted
him to the found the March of Dimes.

Roosevelt talking with two young fellow polio patients at
Warm Springs.