LADIES' GALLERY

Virginia Harding was one of the first two women elected to serve in the Ohio General Assembly on behalf of Gallia County. She was first elected in an unusually strong showing of Democratic candidates in a traditionally Republican county in 1926. Her victory in Gallia County is most amazing in this respect because at the time only one other Gallia County Democrat had been elected to the General Assembly (in 1868). She was not only the first Democratic woman to be elected to the General Assembly, but also the first rural woman.

She was born in the Cheshire township of Gallia and received her education there. She later moved to Gallipolis and married H.M. Harding, past treasurer of Gallia County. Virginia Harding served two terms in the Ohio House of Representatives.

Biography courtesy of the Ohio Women's Policy and Research Commission