Frances Payne Bolton

Frances Payne Bolton (1885-1977) was the first woman from Ohio to serve in the United States Congress. Elected in 1940 to complete the term of her late husband, Chester C. Bolton, Mrs. Bolton represented the 22nd District for 28 years. Her life long advocacy of nursing education is reflected in both her philanthropy and the legislation she supported. Her gift to Western Reserve University in 1923 enabled the school to set up one of the first college-based nursing programs in the country. The school was renamed the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing in her honor in 1935. The Bolton Bill she supported in Congress created the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps to address the critical shortage of nurses during World War II.

[Side B]: Francis Bolton served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee where she pushed for recognition of the strategic importance of Africa and the Middle East in the ideological battle against Communism. She was the first woman to lead a congressional delegation abroad, and served as the first woman congressional delegate to the United Nations. An early conservationist, she masterminded the plan to preserve the view from Mount Vernon, the historic birthplace of George Washington. She died in Lyndhurst and is buried in Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery.