H-Kentucky List of Firsts: Kentucky women in politics Discussion published by Randolph Hollingsworth on Saturday, March 18, 2017 Just for fun, here's a start to a list of "first" Kentucky women in politics. Please reply to add in your own: 1874. Mildred Summers Lucas of Owensboro became the first woman elected to a political office in Kentucky when she won in a special election in Daviess County for jailer. Her win was later revoked by the Kentucky Court of Appeals. 1890. Josephine Kirby Williamson Henry of Versailles was the first woman to campaign publicly for a statewide office in Kentucky -- and in the South -- when she ran on the Prohibition Party ticket for Clerk of the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1890 and again in 1894. She also stood as candidate for President in 1897. 1896. Emma Guy Cromwell of Frankfort became the first woman to hold a statewide office in Kentucky when she was elected state librarian by a vote by the Kentucky State Senate. 1921. Mary Elliott Flanery of Pikeville was a progressive era social reformer, suffragist, politician, and journalist who was the first woman elected to the Kentucky General Assembly and the first woman elected to a state legislature south of the Mason–Dixon line. 1923. Emma Guy Cromwell of Frankfort was the first woman elected as Kentucky's Secretary of State, and she also was the first woman to serve as Acting Governor of Kentucky. 1926. Katherine Gudger Langley of Pikeville was the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress from Kentucky. She was a Republican representative in the U.S. House of Representatives during the Seventieth and Seventy-first sessions of Congress. 1967. Georgia Davis Powers of Louisville began her 21 year-long service as a Senator of the Kentucky General Assembly. A member of the Democratic Party, she became the first person of color and the first woman elected to the Kentucky Senate. 1975. Thelma L. Hawkins Stovall ran while she was Ky. Secretary of State for the office of Lieutenant Governor on the Democratic ticket - and was the first woman to be elected as Kentucky's Lieutenant Governor. 1980. Judge Judy Moberly West of Lakeside Park was was the first woman in Kentucky to serve as a district county judge (she was appointed by Gov. John Y. Brown then won elections twice more thereafter) and she was the first woman to be appointed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals (by Gov. Martha Lane Collins in 1987) where she was the highest ranking woman judge in the state. 1983. Martha Layne Hall Collins from Bagdad, KY was elected the state's 56th Governor and was the first woman to serve in that office. At the time, she was the highest-ranking Democratic woman politician in the U.S. Citation: Randolph Hollingsworth. List of Firsts: Kentucky women in politics. H-Kentucky. 03-18-2017. https://networks.h-net.org/node/2289/discussions/172087/list-firsts-kentucky-women-politics Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1.