Catherine Dean May

Catherine Dean May (May 18, 1914 – May 28, 2004) was a U.S. representative from Washington. She was the first woman elected to Congress in the state of Washington.

Early life, education, and career May was born as Catherine Dean Barnes in Yakima, Washington, and graduated from Yakima Valley Junior College, in 1934. She earned her B.S. from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington in 1936 and her teaching certificate in 1937. She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, in 1939.

She taught English at Chehalis High School from 1937 to 1940 and was women's editor and a news broadcaster in Tacoma, Washington, in 1941 and 1942. She was the first woman from the state of Washington elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1958, May was elected as a Republican to the Eighty-sixth United States Congress. She was subsequently re-elected five times, serving from January 3, 1959, until January 3, 1971. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Washington. While in Congress, May served on the House Agriculture Committee, ranking member of the House Beauty Shop Committee, and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Civil Rights Acts of 1964, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. She also voted in favor of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution but did not vote on the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Upon her marriage to Donald W. Bedell on November 14, 1970, she was known as Catherine May Bedell.

She was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Ninety-second Congress in 1970 and subsequently served on the United States International Trade Commission from 1971 to 1975 and again from 1979 through 1980. In 1982, she was a Special Consultant to the President on the 50 States Project. In 2004, she was the president of Bedell Associates in Palm Desert, California.

She died on May 28, 2004, in Rancho Mirage, California.