Veronica Grace Boland

Veronica Grace Boland (née Barrett; March 18, 1899 – June 19, 1982) was an American Democratic politician who became the first woman from Pennsylvania to serve in the United States Congress. She represented Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives during the Seventy-seventh Congress, serving one term in office from November 1942 until the adjournment of that Congress in December 1942, a period that coincided with the early years of American involvement in World War II.

Boland was born Veronica Grace Barrett in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on March 18, 1899. She was the daughter of Patrick and Winifred Barrett, both of whom had emigrated from Ireland, and she was raised in the city’s Irish American community. She attended the public schools of Scranton and continued her education at Scranton Technical High School, receiving the practical training that prepared her for later clerical and administrative work.

In her early adult life, Veronica Barrett married Patrick J. Boland, a Scranton labor leader and Democratic politician who would go on to represent Pennsylvania’s 11th District in Congress. Through her marriage, she became closely acquainted with political life and the workings of the Democratic Party in northeastern Pennsylvania, although she did not initially seek public office herself. Her husband’s rising political career and his service in the U.S. House of Representatives helped establish the family’s prominence in local and state Democratic circles.

Veronica Grace Boland’s entry into congressional service came under sudden and unusual circumstances. Her husband, Representative Patrick J. Boland, died of a heart attack on May 18, 1942, on the morning of the Pennsylvania primary election in which he was expected to secure renomination for what would have been his second term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Following his death and the resulting vacancy, Democratic Party leaders in Pennsylvania urged Veronica Boland to stand as the party’s candidate to fill her late husband’s seat. She agreed, and in the special election held on November 3, 1942—during the first congressional elections after the United States entered World War II—she ran unopposed and was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-seventh Congress.

Boland was sworn into office on November 19, 1942, becoming the first woman from Pennsylvania to serve in the United States Congress. As a member of the House of Representatives, she participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of her constituents in Pennsylvania’s 11th District during a critical period in American history marked by global conflict and domestic mobilization for war. Her tenure was brief: she served until the adjournment of the Seventy-seventh Congress on December 16, 1942, and chose not to stand for reelection in 1942, effectively retiring from congressional life at the close of that session.

After leaving Congress, Veronica Grace Boland returned to Scranton and resumed a private life away from elective office. She worked as an executive secretary for the Dutch Manufacturing Company in Scranton, applying her administrative skills in the private sector. Health concerns later intervened in her career, and she retired from her position in 1957 when medical issues required that she undergo eye surgery. Although no longer in public office, her brief but historic service in the House placed her among the early cohort of women in the United States House of Representatives and marked a milestone for women’s political representation in Pennsylvania.

Veronica Grace Boland spent her later years in her native Scranton. She died there on June 19, 1982, at the age of eighty-three. She was interred in Cathedral Cemetery in Scranton, closing a life that bridged immigrant roots, local public service, and a pioneering, if short, tenure in the United States Congress.