Senator Rose McConnell Long

Rose McConnell Long (April 8, 1892 – May 27, 1970) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from Louisiana from 1936 to 1937. A member of the Democratic Party, she succeeded her late husband, Huey P. Long, in the Senate and served one term in office. She was the third woman to serve as a U.S. senator and the first woman senator from Louisiana, holding office during a significant period in American history and participating in the legislative process on behalf of her constituents.

Rose McConnell was born on April 8, 1892, in Greensburg, Indiana. Little is recorded in official congressional sources about her early family background or schooling, but as a young woman she became involved in local promotional events. She met Huey Long after she won a cake-baking contest that he had organized to promote a product he was selling at the time. Their meeting led to a two-and-a-half-year courtship, during which Huey Long began to shape the political ambitions that would later define both of their public lives.

In 1913, after this extended courtship, Rose McConnell married Huey Long. The following year, Huey turned to the study of law and, after passing the bar, began practicing as an attorney in Louisiana. The couple had three children: sons Palmer Reid Long and Russell B. Long, and a daughter, Rose Lolita Long (later Rose Lolita Long McFarland). As Huey Long’s career advanced, Rose Long supported his rise from local attorney to one of Louisiana’s dominant political figures. Huey Long was elected governor of Louisiana in 1928 and then to the United States Senate in 1930, becoming a nationally prominent and controversial political leader. During these years, Rose Long’s role was primarily that of political spouse and mother, maintaining the family while her husband’s influence expanded.

Rose McConnell Long’s direct political career began in the aftermath of tragedy. In 1935, Huey Long was assassinated in Baton Rouge while serving as a U.S. senator. In an example of widow’s succession, she was appointed to fill his vacant seat in the United States Senate until a special election could be held. On April 21, 1936, she won that special election to serve the remaining months of her husband’s unexpired term. Although she thus secured an electoral mandate, she chose not to be a candidate in the fall of 1936 for a full six-year term. Her service in Congress, from 1936 to 1937, coincided with the New Deal era and a period of intense political realignment, and she participated in the democratic process and legislative deliberations during a time of significant national economic and social change.

Rose Long’s tenure in the Senate was historically notable for the advancement of women in national politics. Because Senator Hattie Caraway of Arkansas was already serving when Rose Long took office, their overlapping service marked the first time that two women served simultaneously in the United States Senate. As the first woman senator from Louisiana and only the third woman ever to sit in that body, Rose Long’s brief term contributed to the gradual normalization of women’s participation in high federal office, even as her own path there followed the then-common pattern of succession through a deceased husband’s seat.

In later life, Rose McConnell Long largely withdrew from public office but remained connected to politics through her family. Her son Russell B. Long went on to become a powerful and long-serving U.S. senator from Louisiana, and her family maintained a prominent role in state and national affairs. Rose Long spent her final years in Boulder, Colorado, where she lived near her daughter, Rose Lolita Long McFarland. She died there on May 27, 1970. At the time of her death, she was survived by her daughter; her son Palmer Reid Long of Shreveport, Louisiana; and her son Russell B. Long, then the sitting United States senator from Louisiana.

Rose McConnell Long’s life and public image continued to attract interest after her death. She was portrayed by actress Ann Dowd in the 1995 television movie “Kingfish: A Story of Huey Long,” which dramatized the career and personal life of her husband and, by extension, her own role in that political dynasty. On February 1, 2014, she was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield, Louisiana. At that ceremony, six others were also honored, including John S. Hunt II, son of her sister-in-law Lucille Long Hunt and a member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission from 1964 to 1972, and Robert “Bob” Mann, press secretary to Senator Russell B. Long. Her induction underscored her place in Louisiana’s political history as a pioneering woman senator and a central figure in one of the state’s most influential political families.