Pearl Oldfield succeeded her husband, William Oldfield of Arkansas, on his death in 1928. Although she had years of experience in Washington as the wife of a powerful politician, Oldfield left Congress after little more than one term, content to retire from the House and return to the social whirl of Washington. Many early women in Congress like Representative Oldfield arrived there by running for seats left vacant by the death of their spouses, a practice that became known as the “widow’s mandate.”
