The Riddle of Ruth Bryan Owen

Abstract

Her ancestors helped win America's independence. As a child, she watched House debates with rapt attention, vowing eventually to return to her beloved Capitol building. She gazed out on millions of cheering faces during her father's three presidential campaigns. Her uncle was a governor and vice-presidential nominee, her father the American Secretary of State. She ran the American Women's War Relief Fund alongside future First Lady Lou Hoover and nursed dying Allied soldiers. After establishing herself as Florida's leading female activist, she campaigned for the House of Representatives in 1928, promising to send her district's most exemplary young citizens to Washington on an unparalleled civic pilgrimage.