Katherine G. Langley

Katherine Gudger Langley
Katherine G. Langley
Born	Katherine Emeline Gudger (1888-02-14)February 14, 1888 Madison County, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	August 15, 1948(1948-08-15) (aged 60) Pikeville, Kentucky, U.S.
Spouse(s)	John Wesley Langley (1868–1932) (married 1905-1932)
Children	3
Parent(s)	James M. Gudger, Jr. Katherine Hawkins Gudger

Katherine Emeline Gudger Langley (14 February 1888 – 15 August 1948) was an American politician. Langley was member of United States House of Representatives from Kentucky during the Seventieth and Seventy-first sessions of Congress. She was the wife of Kentucky politician John W. Langley and daughter of James M. Gudger, Jr., a four-term Congressman from North Carolina. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Kentucky.

Langley was born near Marshall in Madison County, North Carolina on 14 February 1888, to James Madison Gudger and Katherine Hawkins. She graduated in 1901 from the Woman's College, Richmond, Virginia and attended Emerson College of Oratory.

Langley taught at the Virginia Institute at Bristol, TN and worked as a secretary for her father before marrying John Langley and moving to Pikeville, Kentucky in 1905. She had three children: Katherine Langley Bentley, John Jr., and Susanna.

Katherine Langley served as chairman of the Pike County Red Cross Society during the First World War. Moving to Washington D.C. in 1907, she served as secretary for her husband for the eighteen years he served as the Republican representative for the 10th District. She held numerous appointed and elected public positions including vice chairman of the Republican State Central Committee of Kentucky 1920-1922—she was the first woman member of that committee and founded the Kentucky Woman's Republican State Committee which she chaired in 1920. She served as an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1920 and delegate in 1924. She clerked for the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds which her husband chaired. John Langley was convicted of violating the Volstead Act by selling alcohol illegally and trying to bribe a federal officer. After his appeal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1926 he resigned from his office in Congress as Kentucky's representative for the 10th District. Katherine Langley ran on the Republican ticket using her husband's arrest as part of a government conspiracy, and she soundly defeated her husband's successor, Andrew J. Kirk, in the primary.