biography
| name: |
Ross, Nellie
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| |
née Tayloe
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| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (?1876–1977)
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| biography:
| US governor, born in St Joseph, Missouri, USA. A housewife, she became the first woman governor in US history (Democrat, Wyoming, 1925–7), gaining election after her husband died in mid-term. (She was inaugurated two weeks before ‘Ma’ Ferguson in Texas.) She remained active in Democratic politics afterwards, and was appointed director of the US Bureau of the Mint (1933–53), again becoming the first woman to hold that office, and also the first woman to have her likeness on a mint medal. She expanded the bureau's operations, building the mints at Fort Knox, West Point, and San Francisco. After leaving that office she wrote about politics for women's magazines. |
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