It would seem that not much is known about Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor. She was born in 1879 in Danville, Virginia, and later moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she was mostly raised. Her first marriage lasted only 10 years, but it was her second marriage that was most important.
In 1906, when she visited England, she met an influencial, rich man named Waldorf Astor, and they were soon married. In 1910, Waldorf was elected to Parliament and Nancy immediately also involved herself in government.
In 1919, Waldorf and Nancy became Viscount and Viscountress, and then Nancy won a huge majority of the votes to put her in a vacated seat in the House of Commons, and was the first woman elected into the British Parliament.
Astor was also a member of the Tory party (the political opposite of the Whig party), and she focused mostly on women and children's issues. She was also the first female in Parliament to introduce a bill. The bill she introduced was a bill prohibiting the selling of alcohol to an individual under eighteen years of age.
Astor retired from Parliament in 1945 and died in 1964 when she was 85 years old.
