Charles Curtis: Kaw Vice President, the Curtis Act, and an Early ERA

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Charles Curtis was born in 1860 in the Kansas territory, of Kaw, Osage, and Potawatomi descent on his mother's side and a descendant of Chief White Plume of the Kaw and Chief Pahuska of the Osage. He spoke French and Kansa before English, lost his mother at three, and was raised by grandparents who split his childhood between the Kaw Reservation and white Topeka. In 1868, at eight, he rode 60 miles across the prairie with an interpreter to seek help when about a hundred Cheyenne warriors entered the reservation. Both grandmothers pushed his schooling; he passed the bar in 1881, served as Shawnee County prosecutor, and in 1892 won a U.S. House seat as a Republican.

In Congress he tracked constituents on an ever growing card index and sponsored the Curtis Act of 1898, which extended allotment to the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole and abolished their tribal courts after Congress revised it five times. Chosen for the Senate in 1906, he won popular elections in 1913, 1920, and 1926, served as whip and majority leader, and in 1921 introduced the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment. After opposing Herbert Hoover's nomination, he joined the 1928 ticket and became the first Native American and first multiracial vice president. His 1930 remark that good times were just around the corner followed him, and the ticket lost to Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. He died in February 1936.

• William Borah called him a walking political encyclopedia and one of the best political poker players in America.
• His inauguration featured a Native American jazz band, and he was the first vice president sworn in on a Bible.
• He named his widowed sister Dolly as official hostess and hired Lola M. Williams as secretary, giving her regular Senate floor access.
• He opened the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
• Presiding over the 1932 electoral count, he gaveled down jeering Democrats and led applause for his successor, John Nance Garner.