So many women roared to victories in Tuesday’s elections that a record of more than 100 are slated to be in the U.S. House when it convenes in early 2019. That’s a long way from 1917, when Jeanette Rankin joined the chamber as its first and only female member.

The 36-year-old Rankin won election as a Republican in Montana after campaigning on horseback. She was nationally known as a leader in the suffrage movement and had helped women in Montana win the vote in 1914. She promised to work “for laws that women shall be paid the same wages as men for equal amounts of work.”

Rankin’s arrival at Congress on April 1, 1917, was front-page news across the country. As a male Montana lawmaker escorted Rankin to her seat in the rear center of the House, all the members and spectators in the gallery rose to their feet cheering. Rankin wore a dark dress and no hat, the Associated Press reported. Congressmen treated Rankin politely, but one newspaper warned against venturing into the Republican cloakroom where she would have to endure “swear words and mingled grades of tobacco smoke.”