The outspoken, independent-minded farmer from Vigo County was an advocate for women and became known for her support of flood control measures and repeal of Prohibition, as well as her opposition to communism.
Jenckes's most significant accomplishment for her Indiana constituents was obtaining an $18 million appropriation for the Wabash River basin that eventually became law.
She left high school early to complete her formal education by taking two years of courses at Coates College for Women.
During her campaign, Jenckes focused on repealing Prohibition, which she felt was contributing to the decline in grain prices, along with her previous record and efforts related to flood control.
In the general election she defeated Fred S. Purnell, an eight-term Republican congressman from Attica, Indiana, who had represented the northern counties in a district that was lost in the reorganization.
[8][10] During her first term in Congress, Jenckes took action on her campaign promise to repeal Prohibition by voting in support of the Cullen-Harrison Act, which allowed for the production, transportation, and sale of beer; it passed in March 1933.
Through her work on the District of Columbia Committee, Jenckes sought to provide the city's voters "with a greater voice in their government," to reduce the workload of its firefighters, and to monitor its schools.
Jenckes's most significant accomplishment for her constituents was to successfully obtain an $18 million appropriation for the Wabash River basin that eventually became law.
[14] Two themes characterized the remainder of her congressional career: Jenckes's "self-identification as a champion of women’s interests" and presenting herself as someone who could offer a feminine perspective on legislative issues.
[15] Endorsed by the National Woman's Party during her 1934 re-election campaign, Jenckes advocated for political equality for women, although she was not a radical feminist by later-defined standards.
"[2] In 1936 Jenckes won a third term in the U.S. House, largely due to Roosevelt's landslide victory, by defeating Noble J. Johnson, her Republican challenger, only a few weeks after her daughter's death from tuberculosis.
[15] In 1935 Jenckes supported an amendment to a Washington, D.C., appropriations bill that prohibited teaching, advocating, or mentioning communism in the city's public schools.
[2] Following re-election to her third and final term in Congress, Jenckes continued to create controversy about her anticommunist comments and ongoing distrust of Russia and Japan.
[3] The goal of the annual gathering, which she attended with three male U.S. senators, was to promote peace and cooperation in an effort to establish representative democracies.
When Jenckes returned to the United States after the conference, she expressed her growing concern about Germany's expanding building programs and urged the U.S. government to demand repayment of loans made to European countries during World War I,[9][17] a move that she thought would discourage rearmament.
[18] Jenckes ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, but Noble J. Johnson, her Republican challenger, narrowly defeated her in the general election.
In 1956, when Jenckes was seventy-nine, she gained national attention for her efforts to assist five Catholic priests in their escape to the United States from prisons in Budapest, Hungary, during the Hungarian uprising.
[3][7] After fracturing her pelvis, Jenckes was moved from her home in Terre Haute, Indiana, to a local nursing facility, where she died on January 9, 1975, at that age of ninety-seven.