Janet Rosenberg Jagan (October 20, 1920 – March 28, 2009) was a U.S.-born Guyanese politician who served as the President of Guyana, serving from December 19, 1997, to August 11, 1999. She was the first female President of Guyana. She previously served as the first female Prime Minister of Guyana from March 17, 1997, to December 19, 1997. The wife of Cheddi Jagan, whom she succeeded as president, she was awarded Guyana's highest national award, the Order of Excellence, in 1993, and the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Gold Medal for Women's Rights in 1998. Early years and marriage Jagan was born Janet Rosenberg to middle-class Jewish parents on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, on October 20, 1920. Her maternal grandparents, Adolph and Rosa Kronberg (née Appelbaum), were Jewish immigrants. Adolph immigrated to Chicago from Romania and Rosa came from Hungary. In December 1942, aged 22, while working as a student nurse at Cook County Hospital, she met Cheddi Jagan, a Hindu Indo-Guyanese dentistry student at Northwestern University. They married on August 5, 1943, and in December that year she moved with him to Guyana, where he set up his dental practice. In Guyana In Guyana, she took part in labour activism along with her husband and joined the British Guianese Labour Union. She also worked in her husband's dental clinic as a nurse for 10 years. In 1946, she founded the Women's Political and Economic Organization and co-founded the Political Affairs Committee. Political career Janet Jagan unsuccessfully ran for a seat from Central Georgetown in the 1947 general election. On January 1, 1950, she and her husband were co-founders of the left-wing People's Progressive Party (PPP); Janet served as the PPP's General Secretary from 1950 to 1970. Also in 1950, Jagan was elected to the Georgetown City Council. She was subsequently elected to the House of Assembly in the April 1953 election, winning a seat from Essequibo constituency. She was one of three women to win seats in that election; following the election, she was chosen as Deputy Speaker of the Legislature. The PPP, a left-wing party, opposed British colonial rule of Guyana. After its electoral victory in April 1953, the PPP briefly formed the government, but the British government had the PPP government removed later in the year due to concerns about the Jagans' alleged communist sympathies. Leading the country for only 133 days in 1953 following the free