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Katharine St. George
Katharine St. George
Member of the; U.S. House of Representatives; from New York
	In office; January 3, 1947 – January 3, 1965
Preceded by	Augustus W. Bennet
Succeeded by	John G. Dow
Constituency	29th district (1947–53); 28th district (1953–63); 27th district (1963–65)
Personal details
Born	Katharine Price Collier; July 12, 1894; Bridgnorth, England
Died	May 2, 1983 (aged 88); Tuxedo Park, New York, U.S.
Resting place	St. Mary's-in-Tuxedo Episcopal Church Cemetery, Tuxedo Park, New York, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	George Baker Bligh St. George (m. 1917; died 1957)
Children	1
Relatives	Warren Delano Robbins (half-brother); Franklin D. Roosevelt (cousin)

Katharine Price Collier St. George (July 12, 1894 – May 2, 1983) was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New York, and a cousin of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[1]

Early life and family

St. George was born in Bridgnorth, England, in 1894, to American parents. Her family returned to the United States when she was two years of age. Her father, Hiram Price Collier, was a former Unitarian minister.^[1] Her mother, Catherine Delano Collier, was the younger sister of Sara Delano Roosevelt, mother of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[1] St. George's younger sister, Sara Collier, was named in their aunt's honor.^[1] From her mother's first marriage to Charles Albert Robbins, she was younger half-sister of diplomat Warren Delano Robbins.^[1]

Career

She was a member of the town board of Tuxedo Park, New York, from 1926 until 1949. She was chair of the Orange County Republican committee from 1942 until 1948. She was a delegate to the 1944 Republican National Convention. She was elected to Congress in 1946 and served from January 3, 1947, until January 3, 1965. (Her opponent in the 1956 election was Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Bill Mauldin.) She narrowly lost a re-election bid in 1964 against liberal Democrat John G. Dow.

A proponent of pay equity, St. George was a supporter of the Equal Pay Act of 1963.^[2] In 1962, St. George proposed that legislation be passed to ensure that women received equal pay for equal work.^[2] Her proposals were drafted into a bill and introduced by Congresswoman Edith Green, an Oregon Democrat.^[2] During a debate regarding the bill, St. George stated that opposing the bill was comparable to "being against motherhood".^[2]

The bill met with stiff opposition from the United States Chamber of Commerce, but received support from the Kennedy Administration, the American Association of Women, the National Consumers League, the ACLU, and the AFL-CIO.^[2]

The bill passed in both the House and the Senate, but it passed in different forms, and there was no final bill. Undaunted, in 1963, Green re-introduced the bill, and this time it was successfully signed into law.^[2]

St. George voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957,^[3] 1960,^[4] and 1964,^[5] as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[6]

Personal life

Katharine married George Baker Bligh St. George, third son of the second Baronet St. George (see St George Baronets) and grandson of George Fisher Baker. They were the parents of one daughter:^[7]

Priscilla St. George, who married first to Angier Biddle Duke (1915–1995), an American diplomat, and an heir to the Duke tobacco empire, from 1936^[8] to 1940; and second to State Senator Allan A. Ryan, Jr. (1903–1981) from 1941^[9] to 1950.^[10]

St. George and her family resided briefly at 2144 Wyoming Avenue in Washington D.C.^[11] before relocating to Tuxedo Park, New York, in June 1919, where she much later died at the age of eighty-eight, in 1983.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Roosevelt Genealogy," Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. (Accessed February 21, 2011.) http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/resources/genealogy.html Archived December 24, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Suzanne O'Dea Schenken. Suzanne O'Dea. From suffrage to the Senate: an encyclopedia of American women in politics, Volume 2. p. 236 New York: ABC-Clio, 1999
^ "HR 6127. CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957". GovTrack.us.
^ "HR 8601. PASSAGE".
^ "H.R. 7152. PASSAGE".
^ "S.J. RES. 29. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO BAN THE USE OF POLL TAX AS A REQUIREMENT FOR VOTING IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS". GovTrack.us.
^ Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
^ "Milestone, Nov. 15, 1937." TIME magazine, November 15, 1937 issue. Accessed February 21, 2011. [1]
^ ALLAN A. RYAN WEDS MRS. ST. GEORGE DUKE in the New York Times on August 6, 1941 (subscription required)
^ MRS. RYAN WINS DIVORCE in the New York Times on December 14, 1950 (subscription required)
^ Brooklyn Blue Book and Long Island Society Register. Brooklyn Life Publishing Company. 1919. p. 2144. Retrieved May 1, 2020.

External links

United States Congress. "Katharine St. George (id: S000764)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Katharine St. George at Find a Grave

U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Augustus W. Bennet	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 29th congressional district 1947–1953	Succeeded by J. Ernest Wharton
Preceded by Ralph A. Gamble	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 28th congressional district 1953–1963	Succeeded by J. Ernest Wharton
Preceded by Robert R. Barry	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 27th congressional district 1963–1965	Succeeded by John G. Dow