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Sarah Lee Fain (1888-1962) was
one of the first two women to serve in the Virginia General
Assembly. After women gained the right to vote in 1920, she
became active in Democratic Party politics in Norfolk. In 1923
she was elected to the first of three consecutive two-years
terms in the House of Delegates, where she became chairman of
the committee on schools and colleges. At the same 1923
election, Helen Timmons Henderson was elected to represent
Russell and Buchanan Counties in the House of Delegates. In 1925
Sallie Cooke Booker, of Henry County, was elected as the third
woman in the assembly, and in 1927 Helen Ruth Henderson
succeeded her mother as the fourth woman. Fain served with all
of them. After retiring from the assembly Fain ran
unsuccessfully in 1930 for the U.S. House of Representatives.
She was appointed to the staff of the National Emergency Council
in 1934 and became the first chief of the United States
Information Service. Fain and Henderson were the only two women
in the General Assembly when
they took
office in 1924. In 2000 there are twenty-three. |
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Sarah Lee Fain and Helen T.
Henderson.
From Norfolk Virginian-Pilot,
9 January 1924. Photograph.
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Virginia
Cavalcade |
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