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{{Short description|American politician (1888–1948)}}{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2020}}

factoids

|term_start = March 4, 1927|term_end = March 4, 1931|predecessor = Andrew J. Kirk|successor = Andrew J. May|birth_name = Katherine Emeline Gudger188814}}|birth_place = Madison County, North Carolina, U.S.1948152|14}}|death_place = Pikeville, Kentucky, U.S.Republican Party (United States)>RepublicanEmerson College>Emerson College of OratoryJohn W. LangleyJanuary 17, 1932|end=d.}}|parents = James M. Gudger Jr. (father)WEBSITE=HISTORIC CONGRESSIONAL CEMETERY, May 27, 2016, }}Katherine Emeline Langley (née Gudger; February 14, 1888 – August 15, 1948) was an American politician. Langley was a member of United States House of Representatives from Kentucky during the Seventieth and Seventy-first sessions of Congress.WEB, Langley, Katherine Gudger,weblink History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Historian, Office of Art and Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, May 25, 2016, She was the wife of Kentucky politician John W. Langley and daughter of James M. Gudger, Jr., a four-term Congressman from North Carolina.BOOK, Foerstel, Karen, Biographical Dictionary of Congressional Women, 1999, Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, 155–156,weblink registration, langley., May 25, 2016, 978-0-313-30290-9, She was the first woman elected to Congress from Kentucky.

Family life and education

Langley was born near Marshall in Madison County, North Carolina on February 14, 1888, to James Madison Gudger and Katherine Hawkins.WEB, Women in Congress, 1917–2006,weblink Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Prepared Under the Direction of The Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives (House document 108-223), May 25, 2016, Washington, D.C., 76, 2006, She graduated in 1901 from the Woman's College, Richmond, Virginia and attended Emerson College of Oratory.

Political career

Langley taught at the Virginia Institute at Bristol, Tennessee and worked as a secretary for her father before marrying John Langley and moving to Pikeville, Kentucky in 1905. She had three children: Katherine Langley Bentley, John Jr., and Susanna.WEB, Long, Joe O'Neal, Langley, Katherine Emeline Gudger,weblink NCpedia, Government & Heritage Library at the State Library of North Carolina, May 25, 2016, Katherine Langley served as chairman of the Pike County Red Cross Society during the First World War. Moving to Washington D.C. in 1907, she served as secretary for her husband for the eighteen years he served as the Republican representative for the 10th District. She held numerous appointed and elected public positions including vice chairman of the Republican State Central Committee of Kentucky 1920–1922—she was the first woman member of that committee and founded the Kentucky Woman's Republican State Committee which she chaired in 1920. She served as an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1920 and delegate in 1924. She clerked for the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds which her husband chaired. John Langley was convicted of violating the Volstead Act by selling alcohol illegally and trying to bribe a federal officer. After his appeal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1926 he resigned from his office in Congress as Kentucky's representative for the 10th District. Katherine Langley ran on the Republican ticket using her husband's arrest as part of a government conspiracy, and she soundly defeated her husband's successor, Andrew J. Kirk, in the primary.Langley was elected by a healthy majority of votes twice to the United States House of Representatives as a representative from Kentucky during the Seventieth and Seventy-first sessions of Congress, serving from March 4, 1927, through March 3, 1931.Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Katherine Gudger Langley entry accessed url August 18, 2006. Because of her husband's conviction and disgraceful resignation, she was marginalized in social circles that once had accommodated her flamboyant style: a reporter wrote of "her unstinted display of gypsy colors on the floor." Her physical presence became the target of derision by the Washington elite, and her Kentucky-style oratory was also attacked.WEB, Tabler, Dave, He wears the breeches but the lady has brains,weblink Appalachian History Stories, quotes and anecdotes, May 25, 2016, July 15, 2013, During her tenure as a Representative, she missed a third (52 out of 174) of the roll-call votes.WEB, Rep. Katherine Langley, Former Representative from Kentucky's 10th District, Republican,weblink GovTrack, Civic Impulse, LLC, May 25, 2016, Her committee appointments were Claims, Invalid Pensions, and Immigration and Naturalization as well as the Committee on Education.BOOK, James, Edward T., James, Janet Wilson, Boyer, Paul S., Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 2, 1971, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 367,weblink Langley, Katherine Gudger, 978-0-674-62734-5, While in Congress she supported women's issues and advocated for the creation of a cabinet-level department of education.BOOK, Schenken, Suzanne O'Dea, From Suffrage to the Senate: An Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics, Volume 1: A-M, 1999, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, CA, 391,weblink May 27, 2016, Langley, Katherine Gudger (1888–1948), 978-0-87436-960-1, In 1930 Katherine Langley was the first woman to serve on the Republican Committee on Committees in the U.S. House of Representatives.Once her husband announced he would try to run for office again, her support among her constituents withered. There are no records that show they ran against each other in the primaries, but the connection that had once propelled her into office was gone. With the rise of the Democrats in Kentucky due to President Hoover's inability to turn around the agricultural depression or impact the depressed coal industry, Katherine Langley narrowly lost her bid for re-election in 1930 to the Democratic contender, Andrew Jackson May.BOOK, Palmer, Barbara, Simon, Dennis, Breaking the Political Glass Ceiling: Women and Congressional Elections, 2008, Routledge, New York, 62, Second,weblink May 27, 2016, 978-1-135-89175-6, Later she served as a postmistress and was elected as a district railroad commissioner two times, serving the Third Kentucky District from 1939 to 1942. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Death

Langley died in Pikeville, Kentucky, on August 15, 1948, and is buried in the Johnson Memorial Cemetery, Pikeville, Kentucky.

See also

• Women in the United States House of Representatives
• John W. Langley

References

{{Reflist}}

Bibliography

• BOOK, Foerstel, Karen, Biographical Dictionary of Congressional Women,weblink 1999, Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, 155–156, Katherine Langley (R-Ky.), 978-0-313-30290-9, May 25, 2016,
• WEB, Women in Congress, 1917–2006,weblink Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Prepared Under the Direction of The Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives (House document 108-223), May 25, 2016, Washington, D.C., 76–79, 2006,
• WEB, Langley, Katherine Gudger, 1888–1948 (Portraits),weblink CONTENTdm Collection, University of Louisville Libraries, May 27, 2016, June 24, 2016,weblink dead,

External links

• {{commons category-inline}}

{{US House succession boxdistrict= 10| before= Andrew J. Kirk| after=Andrew J. May| years= 1927{{spaced ndash}}1931 (obsolete district)}} {{Kentucky Women Remembered|state=collapsed}}{{USCongRep-start|congresses= 70th–71st United States Congresses |state=Kentucky}}{{USCongRep/KY/70}}{{USCongRep/KY/71}}{{USCongRep-end}}{{Authority control}}