Senator Paula Hawkins of Florida (1981-1987) was the first woman elected to the Senate who had a living spouse during her service as a senator. Previously, two women senators, Dixie Bibb Graves of Alabama and Elaine Edwards of Louisiana, had been appointed to office by their husbands to fill a few months of a vacant seat. As sitting governors, their husbands did not accompany them to Washington. All other previous women senators had been widows or unmarried at the time of their election or appointment. During the 1990s, as an increasing number of women senators had living spouses, the Senate Wives' Club was renamed the Senate Spouses' Club.

Few wives accompanied the first senators and representatives to Washington because the living conditions were so primitive. Representative Abraham Lincoln brought his wife Mary and three small children when he served in the House in the 1840s. Trying to live and work out of his small rooms in a nearby boarding house got on Lincoln's nerves, however, and within a short time he sent them back to her parents' home in Lexington, Kentucky, for the remainder of his single two-year term.

After the Civil War, hotels and apartment houses provided more comfortable accommodations, and wealthier senators even built homes in the capital. Many now brought their wives and unmarried daughters to Washington. To facilitate social entertaining — and matchmaking — the Congressional Directory published a series of symbols next to the senators' names to designate "those whose wives accompany them," "those whose daughters accompany them," and "those having other ladies with them."

The first spouse to succeed her husband in the Senate was Hattie Wyatt Caraway, a Democrat from Arkansas. When her husband Thaddeus Caraway died in 1931, the governor of Arkansas appointed Hattie Caraway to the seat, assuming she would simply hold it until the next election. Instead, she ran for the office and, with a little help from the flamboyant Louisiana Senator Huey Long, who toured Arkansas with her, she won an upset victory in 1932 — making her the first woman elected to the Senate. She won again in 1938. Hattie Caraway's portrait now hangs outside the Senate chamber.

When Senator Huey Long was assassinated in 1935, his widow Rose Long was elected to fill out his term. Their son Russell Long later served in the Senate, making them the only father-mother-son combination of U.S. senators.

On Rose Long's first day in the Senate she left the chamber, went through a set of swinging doors marked "Senators Only," and discovered that she was in the men's room. It remained a men's room until 1998, when the election of a record number of women senators caused the restroom to be remodeled into a men's room and a women's room.

One Senate spouse was married to two senators, although not at the same time. Lucille Sanderson of Texarkana, Texas, married Morris Sheppard in 1909. He was elected to the Senate as a Democrat from Texas in 1913 and served until his death in 1941. The following year, Lucille Sanderson Sheppard married Texas' other Democratic senator, Tom Connally, who was a widower. He served in the Senate until 1953, giving her a 40-year tenure as a Senate spouse. Lucille Sanderson Sheppard Connally's grandson Connie Mack was later elected a senator from Florida.

In the early twentieth century it was not unusual to find senators' wives working in their husbands' offices. Senate staffs were small — perhaps two or three staff members — and wives of senators did secretarial duties to help supplement the family income. Bess Truman, for instance, worked in Senator Harry Truman's office and continued to help in the office when he became vice president. After World War II, however, nepotism laws prevented family members from being employed in Senate offices. In 1971 when Vermont Senator George Aiken married his administrative assistant Lola Pierotti, she kept her job but had to give up her $24,000-a-year salary.

In 1917, during World War I, the Senate Wives Club was founded. It was organized at the suggestion of Mrs. Key Pittman, whose husband was a Democratic senator from Nevada. (Lucille Sanderson Sheppard Connally was a charter member). From the beginning, Senate wives met in a basement room of the Senate Office Building to knit, sew, and roll bandages for the Red Cross. The Spouses Club today still maintains its connection with the Red Cross, sponsoring the regular Senate blood drives. Senator Elizabeth Dole, a former Senate spouse, once headed the American Red Cross.

In 1942 First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt dropped by the Senate Wives Club for lunch — bringing her own sandwich in a bag, just like the other members of the club. In later years the club began sponsoring an annual luncheon for the first lady — no longer requiring her to bring her own food. In 2000, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first wife of a U.S. president to be elected to the Senate when she won a Senate seat from New York.

For many years it was customary for the Senate wives to wear a white head veil with a Red Cross emblem during the meetings. When Jacqueline Bouvier married Senator John F. Kennedy in 1953, she joined the Senate Wives Club and was given her veil. Suddenly, Mrs. Kennedy disappeared. She had run upstairs to her husband's office to let him see how she looked in her "Senate wife uniform."

Until the 1980s, only a very few Senate spouses carried on their own professional careers or had outside employment. During the Progressive era, Belle Case La Follette, who was married to "Fighting Bob" La Follette, the progressive senator from Wisconsin, was herself a lawyer and an early feminist. She helped edit and publish La Follette's Magazine, but was very much the exception to the rule. In the 1950s, Nancy Kefauver, wife of Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, stood out because she was an artist with her own studio.

Over time, Senate wives entered their own careers — several became prominent real estate brokers in Washington, some continued in previous careers as lawyers, accountants, lobbyists, business executives, university professors and school teachers, and a number have held high-level positions in the executive branch. Prior to her election as a U.S. Senator, Elizabeth Dole served as Secretary of Labor in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. Elaine Chao, wife of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, how holds that same position under President George W. Bush. Some spouses have held elective office themselves, such as Senator Arlen Specter's wife Joan, who served on the Philadelphia city council. Betty Bumpers, wife of Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, founded a national peace organization, "Peace Links—Women Against Nuclear War." Still others have kept their jobs in their home states, letting their senatorial spouses do the commuting on weekends.