Ruth Bryan Owen - Biography

Biography

She was born on October 2, 1885.

In 1903 Ruth Bryan dropped out of the University of Nebraska to marry William H. Leavitt, a well-known Newport, Rhode Island, portrait painter, who was painting Bryan's father's portrait when the couple met. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1909. She married Reginald Owen, a British Army officer in 1910, bearing two more children. Her second husband died in 1928. She spent three years in Oracabessa, Jamaica, where she oversaw the design and construction of her home, Golden Clouds, which is now operated as a luxury villa. Owen kept her home in Jamaica for over three decades and spent many winters there, particularly in later years when she lived in Denmark and New York. She detailed her time in Jamaica and experiences at Golden Clouds in vivid detail in her book, Caribbean Caravel.

During World War I, she served as a war nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment in the Egypt-Palestine campaign, 1915-1918. From 1925 to 1928, she was an administrator at the University of Miami.

Owen first ran for office in 1926 for the Democratic nomination for Florida's Fourth Congressional District, losing by fewer than 800 votes. Two years later, after the death of her husband, she ran again. She was elected to Congress (March 4, 1929-March 3, 1933) while a widow and mother of four. Her election was contested on the grounds that she lost her citizenship on her marriage to an alien. By the Cable Act in 1922, she could petition for her citizenship, which she only did in 1925, less than the seven years required by the Constitution. She argued her case before the House Committee on Elections that no American man had ever lost his citizenship by marriage; therefore, Owen argued she lost her citizenship because she was a woman, not because of her marital status. The U.S. House of Representatives voted in her favor. Although Owen won again in 1930, she was defeated for renomination in 1932 by a candidate advocating the repeal of prohibition.