Jeannette Rankin’s Democratic Errand to Washington

In this essay, I argue that Jeannette Rankin’s 1917 address at Carnegie Hall recast a religious rhetorical form—the Puritan errand—for the democratic needs of the early twentieth century. Rankin’s “democratic errand” positioned the American West as a place that nurtured the truths of democracy and could help purge the nation of its political sins.