Edith Rogers (née Nourse; March 19, 1881 – September 10, 1960) was an American social welfare volunteer and politician who served as a Republican in the United States Congress.

[1] In her 35 years in the House of Representatives she was a powerful voice for veterans and sponsored seminal legislation, including the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (commonly known as the G.I.

In 1907, she married John Jacob Rogers, newly graduated from Harvard Law School, who passed the bar and began practicing in Lowell in the same year.

In 1917, John Rogers, as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, traveled to the United Kingdom and France to observe the conditions of the war firsthand.

During this period, Edith Rogers volunteered with the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London for a short time, then from 1917 to 1922 as a "Gray Lady" with the American Red Cross in France and with the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

She also witnessed the conditions faced by women employees and volunteers working with the United States armed forces; with the exception of a few nurses, they were civilians, and received no benefits including no housing, no food, no insurance, no medical care, no legal protection, no pensions, and no compensation for their families in cases of death.

In contrast, the women in the British Army loaned to the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France were military, with the attendant benefits and responsibilities.

Spurred by pressure from the Republican Party and the American Legion who approved of her stance on veteran's issues and wanted the sympathy vote, she was urged to run for her late husband's seat.

On the afternoon of December 13, 1932, Marlin Kemmerer perched on the gallery railing of the U.S. House of Representatives, waved a pistol, and demanded the right to speak.

Rogers had counseled shell-shocked veterans at Walter Reed Hospital; she looked up at Kemmerer and told the troubled young man, "You won't do anything."

When he did so, he was apprehended by Congressman (R – NY, and future mayor of New York City) Fiorello H. La Guardia and an off-duty D.C. police officer.

She supported local economic autonomy; on April 19, 1934, she read a petition against the expanded business regulations of the New Deal, and all 1,200 signatures, into the Congressional Record.

Probably nationalist rather than internationalist in outlook.It is noted in the private papers of ETO Logistics Chief Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee that she was received at Cherbourg, France on 4 October 1944.

The expulsion of Jews from Germany without proper papers caused a refugee crisis in 1938, and after the Evian Conference failed to lift immigration quotas in the 38 participating nations, Edith Rogers co-sponsored the Wagner-Rogers Bill with Senator Robert F. Wagner.

With rising nativism and antisemitism, economic troubles, and Congress asserting its independence, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was unable to support the bill, and it failed.

With this inspiration and model, Edith Rogers introduced a bill to the 76th Congress in early 1941 to establish a Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) during World War II.

The amendment was resoundingly rejected but the unamended bill passed, and on May 14, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's signature turned "An Act to Establish the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps" into Public Law 77-554.

The law passed with no significant opposition, despite granting the WAVES full status as military reserves, under the same Naval regulations that applied to men.

The WAVES were granted equal pay and benefits, but no retirement or disability pensions and were restricted to noncombat duties in the continental United States.

Investigations by the War Department and Edith Rogers uncovered nothing; and the incidence of disorderly and criminal conduct among the WAACs was a tiny fraction of that among the male military population, venereal disease was almost non-existent, and the pregnancy rate was far below civilian women.

Edith Rogers introduced a bill in October 1942 to make the WAACs a formal part of the United States Army Reserve.

The "auxiliary" portion of the name was officially dropped, and on July 5, 1943, Hobby was commissioned as a full colonel, the highest rank allowed in the new Women's Army Corps.

The restriction against combat training and carrying weapons was waived in several cases, allowing women to serve as pay officers, military police, in code rooms, or as drivers in some overseas areas.

During the invasion of Italy by the U.S. Fifth Army under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, a 60-woman platoon served in the advance headquarters, sometimes only a few miles from the front lines; and in the south Pacific WACs moved into Manila, Philippines only three days after occupation.

According to Dwight D. Eisenhower, "During the time I have had WACs under my command they have met every test and task assigned to them.... Their contributions in efficiency, skill, spirit, and determination are immeasurable."

After vehement objection by Eisenhower, who wrote "the women of America must share the responsibility for the security of their country in a future emergency as the women of England did in World War II"; the personal testimony of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal; and support from every major military commander including the Chief of Naval Operations Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, and MacArthur, the Commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East, who wrote, "we cannot ask these women to remain on duty, nor can we ask qualified personnel to volunteer, if we cannot offer them permanent status"; supporting articles in The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor, and the support of Senator and future President Lyndon B. Johnson and Representative Edith Rogers, the amended bill passed in the House but was rejected in the Senate.

A compromise restored the original wording but limited the total number of women allowed to serve for the first few years, which then passed regular army, which was submitted to Congress in 1947 in the midst of a massive reorganization of the unanimously in the Senate, and 206 to 133 in the House.

The bill provided for education and vocational training, low-interest loans for homes, farms, and businesses, and limited unemployment benefits for returning servicemen.

[12] During the Cold War Rogers supported the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Senator Joseph McCarthy during the "Red Scare".

Among its famous graduates is former Congressman, and current chancellor of The University of Massachusetts Lowell, Marty Meehan, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 5, 1993, to July 1, 2007.