Nancy Pelosi

When Nancy Pelosi (born 1940) became the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, she became the highest-ranking elected woman in U.S. history.
Pelosi was born into a political family. Her father was a congressman who became a Baltimore mayor, and her mother organized Democratic women.
After moving to San Francisco, Pelosi worked her way up and was elected to Congress in 1987. She became the first woman to lead a party in Congress in 2003 and first served as speaker from 2007 to 2011. Both allies and critics say that she was pivotal in passing the Affordable Care Act. In 2018, Democrats won control of Congress and made her speaker once more.