The trailblazing businesswoman and politician became the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Nebraska. Hazel worked as a high school teacher and principal before she married the founder of one of Nebraska’s largest construction companies. After her husband’s sudden death in 1937, Hazel ran Lincoln’s Abel Construction for 14 years. Then in 1954, she entered and won a special election to fill the last two months of the term of a U.S. Senator who died in office, doing so to prove a woman could get elected. “Hurricane Hazel” beat 16 men to win the GOP primary and then bested another man in the general election, carrying 86 of the state’s 93 counties. While her Senate tenure was brief, Abel made history as one of few Republicans to vote to censure fellow Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy for his red-baiting tactics. She said she simply listened to the evidence. Hazel died in 1966.