Female trailblazers in US politics: A history of those who came before Kamala Harris
Words by ITV News Assistant Producer Isabel Shore
As the first female vice president, Kamala Harris has already shattered the glass ceiling. But if she wins the election against Donald J Trump on November 5, Harris is set to make history yet again.
If she wins, Harris - whose mother was Indian and father is Jamaican - will not only become the first female, but also the first Black woman, and South Asian person to become US president.
But long before Harris' bid for the White House, American women were already running for office and shaping the political discourse.
ITV News takes a look at all the pioneering women in US history.
The start of the Women’s Rights Movement
The first US women's rights convention took place in New York in 1848, hosted by anti-slavery activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
According to the Center for American Women and Politics this convention resulted in a Declaration of Sentiments, a document inspired by the Declaration of Independence which demanded a variety of rights for women.
Stanton went on to become the first woman to run for the US House of Representatives in 1866, despite not being eligible to vote.
While she received just 24 votes of 12,000 that were cast, her actions led the way for others like Clara Cressingham, Carrie C Holly, and Frances Klock, who were the first women to be elected to a state legislature in 1894.
First woman elected into Congress
It took another 68 years for a women to be elected into Congress, but in 1916 Montana Republican Jeannette Rankin did just that.
As a pacifist, she was the only lawmaker to vote against US entry into both World Wars.
After decades of campaigning, marches and civil disobedience from several generations of women suffrage supporters, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally passed in 1920, giving women in America the right to vote.
First Asian-American woman elected to Congress
Few of the early supporters lived to see this victory and it took a further 45 years for a woman of colour, Hawaiian Democrat Patsy Takemoto Mink, to be elected to the House of Representatives.
Mink's legacy includes writing the Early Childhood Education Act and the Women's Educational Equity Act. She was also the first Asian-American to run for US president.
In more recent years, female politicians have continued to shape the landscape of politics such as Madeleine Albright, who was the first woman to serve as US Secretary of State from 1997-2001.
Albright became the highest-ranking woman in the US government but as a naturalised citizen she was not eligible to stand for President.
The rise of Hillary Clinton
The early 2000s saw the election of a number of leading female figures who have left their mark on modern US politics, including Hillary Clinton, who won the Democrat's presidential primary in 2008 and then became the first woman to be a major party's presumptive presidential nominee in 2016.
Despite winning the popular vote by almost three million votes, Clinton lost the Electoral College and conceded the general election on November 9, 2016.
Other notable political female figures of the 21st century include Condoleezza Rice, who was the first Black woman to serve as US Secretary of State and Representative Nancy Pelosi who became Speaker of the House in 2007 and continues to be the highest-ranking woman in the history of the US Congress.
These political trail blazers have lit the path for Harris to run for president.
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