Pratt, Ruth (1877–1965)

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Pratt, Ruth (1877–1965)

American congressional representative (March 4, 1929–March 3, 1933). Name variations: Ruth Sears Baker Pratt. Born on August 24, 1877, in Ware, Massachusetts; died on August 23, 1965, in Glen Cove, New York; daughter of a manufacturer; educated at Dana Hall in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and at Wellesley College; married John T. Pratt.

Was the first woman elected to New York City Board of Aldermen (1925); served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1929–33).

Ruth Pratt was born on August 24, 1877, to a socially prominent family in Ware, Massachusetts. Her father was a cotton manufacturer and had a great interest in the surrounding community and civic causes. After attending private schools and Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Pratt lived for a time in Greenwich, Connecticut, before marrying John T. Pratt, the son of an oil executive, and moving to New York City in 1904.

Interested in government and community affairs, she became chair of the Second Federal Reserve District's Woman's Liberty Loan Committee during World War I. Pratt, a staunch Republican, was appointed vice-chair of the Republican National Ways and Means Committee in 1918. She supported Herbert Hoover's failed bid to garner the Republican presidential nomination in 1920 (the first American election in which women were able to vote), and in January 1924 she was elected associate leader of the 15th Assembly District. The following year, Pratt was elected to the Board of Aldermen of New York City, the first woman to serve in that post. She campaigned against Mayor John F. Hylan and was an avid supporter of a non-partisan parks agency. Reelected in 1927, she served until 1929, and was responsible for legislation that sought to revise the city charter and to construct tunnels under the East River to connect Manhattan with the city's outer boroughs.

In 1928, Pratt successfully ran against Democrat Phillip Berolzheimer for New York's 17th District (known as the "Silk Stocking" district) seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and assumed her duties when the 71st Congress convened in April 1929. During her term, she served on the Committee on Banking and Currency, the Committee on the Library, and the Committee on Education. In her first House address, Pratt argued against a sugar tariff attached to the Hawley Bill, saying that the increase in the cost of sugar would not improve the working conditions or wages of sugar workers. She supported the repeal of Prohibition, and in 1930 sought legislation that would appropriate $75,000 to publish books for the blind. She was also in favor of President Hoover's refusal to provide federal funds for relief of the unemployed as the Great Depression took hold. That year she ran for reelection against a Democratic candidate favored by the Tammany Hall political machine and the crusading journalist Heywood Broun, who was running as a Socialist, and won by a narrow margin. Two years later, as the Depression deepened, Pratt won the heated Republican primary but was defeated by a Democrat in her bid for a third term. (Hoover, too, lost his bid for reelection.)

A member of the Republican National Committee from 1929 until 1943, Pratt served as president of the Woman's National Republican Club from 1943 to 1946, and also served as chair of the Fine Arts Foundation, a predecessor to the National Endowment for the Humanities. She died on August 23, 1965, in Glen Cove, New York.