Rose McConnell Long
Quick Facts
Biography
Rose McConnell Long (April 8, 1892 – May 27, 1970) was a United States Senator and the wife of Huey Long. She was the third woman to ever serve as a U.S. Senator, and the first from Louisiana.
Life and work
Long was born in Greensburg, Indiana. She met Huey Long after she won a cake baking contest that he had organized. Rose and Huey were married in 1913. After Huey's death in 1935, Rose was appointed to serve in the United States Senate. Rose won a special election on April 21, 1936, to serve the remaining months of her husband's term, but she declined to run for re-election to a six-year term in November 1936. Because Hattie Caraway was already serving in the Senate at the time of Rose's election, it represented the first time that two women had ever served simultaneously in that body.
Rose Long died in Boulder, Colorado, in 1970, where she lived near her daughter, Rose Lolita Long McFarland. She was also survived by her sons, Palmer Reid Long of Shreveport, Louisiana, and Russell B. Long, then the sitting United States Senator from Louisiana (the office she and her husband had both held).
Mrs. Long was portrayed in the television movie Kingfish: A Story of Huey Long by Ann Dowd.
On February 1, 2014, Mrs. Long, along with her nephew by marriage, John S. Hunt, III, was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield. Six others were honored as well, including her son's press-secretary, Robert "Bob" Mann.