Rebecca Ann Felton was an American writer, politician and activist who was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, although she served for only one day. A major figure in American first-wave feminism, Felton was also a white supremacist and the last slave owner to serve in Senate who spoke vigorously in of favor of lynching African Americans, under the pretense of protecting the sexual purity of white women. Many of the African Americans she admonished were falsely accused of rape.
