Quick Facts
Biography
Kathryn Elizabeth Granahan (December 7, 1894 – July 10, 1979) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.
Born Kathryn Elizabeth O'Hay in Easton, Pennsylvania, she graduated from Mount St. Joseph Collegiate Institute (later Chestnut Hill College) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was supervisor of public assistance in the State Auditor General’s Department, and liaison officer between that department and Department of Public Assistance, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1940 to 1943. She was also a member of national board, Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. She was a delegate to the 1960 Democratic National Convention.
She was elected as a Democrat to the 84th United States Congress in 1956, by special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, William T. Granahan, and served until 1963. She served as chair of the House Subcommittee on Postal Operations, and worked with Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield to pass the Granahan bill "to seize and detain the mail of anyone suspected of trafficking in obscenity." She was not a candidate for reelection in 1962.
She appeared on an episode of the TV gameshow "To Tell the Truth" in November 1963.
After her term in Congress, she was appointed Treasurer of the United States and served from January 9, 1963, to November 20, 1966. She died in Norristown, Pennsylvania.