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Of the female Senators who preceded Hawkins:
Rebecca Latimer Felton (D-GA), Rose McConnell Long (D-LA), Dixie Bibb Graves (D-AL), Vera C. Bushfield (R-SD), Eva Kelly Bowring (R-NE), Elaine S. Edwards (D-LA), Muriel Humphrey (D-MN), Maryon Pittman Allen (D-AL) were all appointed and were never elected; Gladys Pyle (R-SD), Hazel Abel (R-NE), were elected, but not to full terms (i.e., to complete terms where the previous senator had died or resigned, not to new six-year terms); Hattie Caraway (D-AR) and Maurine Brown Neuberger (D-OR) were both elected to full six-year terms. However, their husbands had held the seat previously.
Margaret Chase Smith’s (R-ME) husband never served in the Senate, but he did serve in the House. When he died, Margaret won the ensuing election.
Of the appointed Senators, Long, Bushfield, Humphrey, and Allen were all appointed to fill out part of the terms of their deceased husbands, while Graves and Edwards were appointed by their husbands, the Governor of their states at the time.
Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-KS) was elected to a full term in 1978 without her husband having preceded her, making her the first Senator to have been elected totally independently; however, her father was former Kansas Governor Alf Landon, and so this makes Hawkins the first female Senator elected to a full term without a family connection.
