![Dallas_Equal_Suffrage_League_voting_in_the_1918_Texas_primaries](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Dallas_Equal_Suffrage_League_voting_in_the_1918_Texas_primaries.png)
Women's suffrage in Texas was a long term fight starting in 1868 at the first
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
Constitutional Convention. In both Constitutional Conventions and subsequent legislative sessions, efforts to provide women the right to vote were introduced, only to be defeated. Early Texas suffragists such as
Martha Goodwin Tunstall and
Mariana Thompson Folsom worked with national suffrage groups in the 1870s and 1880s. It wasn't until 1893 and the creation of the
Texas Equal Rights Association The Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA) was the first woman's suffrage association to be formed state-wide in Texas. The organization was founded in 1893 and was an affiliate of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The TERA was meant ...
(TERA) by
Rebecca Henry Hayes
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
of
Galveston
Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Ga ...
that Texas had a statewide
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
organization. Members of TERA lobbied politicians and political party conventions on women's suffrage. Due to an eventual lack of interest and funding, TERA was inactive by 1898. In 1903, women's suffrage organizing was revived by
Annette Finnigan and her sisters. These women created the
Texas Equal Suffrage Association
The Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) was an organization founded in 1903 to support white women's suffrage in Texas. It was originally formed under the name of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association (TWSA) and later renamed in 1916. TESA did ...
(TESA) in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
in 1903. TESA sponsored women's suffrage speakers and testified on women's suffrage in front of the
Texas Legislature
The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the US state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful ar ...
. In 1908 and 1912, speaking tours by
Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw (February 14, 1847 – July 2, 1919) was a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and one of the first ordained female Methodist ministers in the United States.
Early life
Shaw ...
helped further renew interest in women's suffrage in Texas. TESA grew in size and suffragists organized more public events, including Suffrage Day at the
Texas State Fair
The State Fair of Texas is an annual state fair held in Dallas at historic Fair Park. The fair has taken place every year since 1886 except for varying periods during World War I and World War II as well as 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It ...
. By 1915, more and more women in Texas were supporting women's suffrage. The
Texas Federation of Women's Clubs officially supported women's suffrage in 1915. Also that year, anti-suffrage opponents started to speak out against women's suffrage and in 1916, organized the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS). TESA, under the political leadership of
Minnie Fisher Cunningham
Minnie Fisher Cunningham (March 19, 1882 – December 9, 1964) was an American suffrage politician, who was the first executive secretary of the League of Women Voters, and worked for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Co ...
and with the support of Governor
William P. Hobby, suffragists began to make further gains in achieving their goals. In 1918, women achieved the right to vote in Texas
primary elections. During the registration drive, 386,000 Texas women signed up during a 17-day period. An attempt to modify the Texas Constitution by voter
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
failed in May 1919, but in June 1919, the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
passed the
Nineteenth Amendment. Texas became the ninth state and the first
Southern state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on June 28, 1919. This allowed white women to vote, but
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
women still had trouble voting, with many turned away, depending on their communities. In 1923, Texas created
white primaries
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South ...
, excluding all Black people from voting in the primary elections. The white primaries were overturned in 1944 and in 1964, Texas's
poll tax was abolished. In 1965, the
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement ...
was passed, promising that all people in Texas had the right to vote, regardless of race or
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
.
Early efforts
Titus H. Mundine, an early leader in the
Republican Party from
Burleson County, brought up a proposition to allow every eligible voter the
right to vote
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
, regardless of sex during the 1868-1869 Texas Constitutional Convention.
A small group of women were also behind the push for the proposition; and out of the ten
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
delegates to the convention, six supported women's suffrage.
Martha Goodwin Tunstall spoke in support of women's suffrage in Austin at a meeting of the Austin Friends of Female Suffrage before the final vote.
The proposal of granting women's suffrage was defeated by a vote of 52 to 13.
Tunstall went on to become the vice president of the Texas chapter of the
National Woman Suffrage Association
The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States. Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was created after the women's rights movement s ...
(NWSA).
In 1872, the
American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) contacted the
Texas Legislature
The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the US state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful ar ...
to petition for women's suffrage.
In 1873, Texas senator,
Albert Jennings Fountain
Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain (October 23, 1838 – disappeared February 1, 1896) was an American attorney who served in the Texas Senate and the New Mexico House of Representatives. Following a purge of corruption among cattle rustlers that ...
of
El Paso
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
, proposed extending suffrage to women.
His proposal was defeated in the
Texas senate
The Texas Senate ( es, Senado de Texas) is the upper house of the Texas State Legislature. There are 31 members of the Senate, representing single-member districts across the U.S. state of Texas, with populations of approximately 806,000 per co ...
.
In the second Texas Constitutional Convention held in 1875, women's suffrage was again introduced.
W.G.T. Weaver from
Cooke County was one of the men who introduced a resolution to grant women's suffrage, but his proposal died in the committee.
In 1884, minister and suffragist
Mariana Thompson Folsom came to Texas. She acted as the main Texas contact for the AWSA and the
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National ...
(NAWSA). Folsom was in contact with
Lucy Stone and
Henry Blackwell who both felt that Texas needed to organize, but that the state may not yet be ready for women's suffrage. Folsom did some tours of the state in 1884. On her tours, Folsom recorded that she was surprised by the "timidity" of women in Texas, who seemed to be afraid to be seen in public spaces. In 1885, a suffragist in Texas attempted to send one thousand signatures on a women's suffrage
petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication.
In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offi ...
to the Texas legislature. However, she found that many supporters of suffrage were hesitant to publicly add their names for fear of "losing 'prestige.'"
Rebecca Henry Hayes
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
, a suffragist living in
Galveston
Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Ga ...
, began to correspond with
Laura Clay of NAWSA in late 1892 and early 1893.
In April 1893, Hayes and ten other women in Texas sent out invitations for a convention to be held to create a statewide women's suffrage group which would be called the
Texas Equal Rights Association The Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA) was the first woman's suffrage association to be formed state-wide in Texas. The organization was founded in 1893 and was an affiliate of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The TERA was meant ...
(TERA).
The first meeting took place at the
Grand Windsor Hotel in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
on May 10, 1893 and Hayes was elected the first president of the organization.
Around fifty people came together to form TERA, and one-fifth of the members were men.
Many of the women involved in the formation of TERA were members of the Texas chapter of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program ...
(WCTU).
TERA advocated for women's right to vote, but also supported other rights, such as a women's right to serve on
juries
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
Juries developed in England dur ...
.
TERA had local chapters formed in
Beaumont
Beaumont may refer to:
Places Canada
* Beaumont, Alberta
* Beaumont, Quebec
England
* Beaumont, Cumbria
* Beaumont, Essex
** Beaumont Cut, a canal closed in the 1930s
* Beaumont Street, Oxford
France (communes)
* Beaumont, Ardèche
* ...
,
Belton, Circleville, Dallas,
Denison,
Fort Worth,
Granger
Granger may refer to:
People
*Granger (name)
*Hermione Granger, a fictional character in Harry Potter
United States
* Granger, Indiana
* Granger, Iowa
* Granger, Minnesota
* Granger, Missouri
* Granger, New York
* Granger, Ohio
* Granger, Te ...
,
San Antonio
("Cradle of Freedom")
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, map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = United States
, subdivision_type1= State
, subdivision_name1 = Texas
, subdivision_t ...
, and
Taylor
Taylor, Taylors or Taylor's may refer to:
People
* Taylor (surname)
** List of people with surname Taylor
* Taylor (given name), including Tayla and Taylah
* Taylor sept, a branch of Scottish clan Cameron
* Justice Taylor (disambiguation)
Pl ...
in 1893 and 1894.
During 1894, Folsom toured Texas, speaking about women's suffrage in 83 different locations. In 1895,
Elizabeth Good Houston became the TERA president and the group sponsored a lecture tour from Folsom.
On these later tours, Folsom found that more Texas were interested in women's suffrage.
In the summer of 1894, suffragists attempted to get women's suffrage added as planks in the major political
party platforms.
Suffragists reached out to the
Democratic, Populist and
Republican parties
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or again ...
.
Mrs. L. A. Craig spoke to the Democratic convention on behalf of the Dallas TERA, but they declined to endorse women's suffrage in the Democratic party platform. Other parties also declined.
In August, the Dallas group called on Governor
James Stephen Hogg to visit Dallas and listen to the women make their case for equal suffrage.
TERA was seriously divided in late 1894 over the question of bringing
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...
to speak in Texas. As a Northerner, a "
Yankee
The term ''Yankee'' and its contracted form ''Yank'' have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Its various senses depend on the context, and may refer to New Englanders, residents of the Northern United S ...
" and an
abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
, she was not seen as a welcome guest to some Texans who had been part of the
Confederacy.
TERA members who wanted her to visit Texas felt that she would invigorate the fight for women's suffrage in Texas. The group could not reach a decision and when Hayes declared that she would not support Anthony's visit, she was removed as president by the executive committee.
Elizabeth A. Fry was elected president, but Hayes would not recognize her authority, leaving the organization run by two presidents for a period of time. Fry gave in and Hayes served as president again, but in 1895
Elizabeth Good Houston was elected the next president over Hayes.
Houston toured several Texas cities and helped to organize suffrage days there. She set up county presidents to help organize smaller local clubs in their respective counties. However, there was less interest in women's suffrage after 1895, despite what Houston tried. In 1895, another legislative attempt at granting women's suffrage is introduced by Representative A.C. Tompkins of
Hempstead, but it was unsuccessful.
There was some work on TERA done by Mrs. L. A. Craig of
Waco
Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...
in 1897. TERA, however, never had a large amount of funds and by 1898, the group had basically dissolved.
After the dissolution of TERA, there was a decline in interest in women's suffrage in Texas. The Texas chapter of NAWSA did not pay its national dues for the year of 1900 and NAWSA decided that the chapter was defunct.
Renewal of efforts
Annette Finnigan and her sisters,
Elizabeth Finnigan Fain and
Katherine Finnigan Anderson, began to revive the women's suffrage movement in Texas in 1903.
Between the three of them, they created equal suffrage leagues in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
and
Galveston
Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Ga ...
.
These led to the creation of the
Texas Equal Suffrage Association
The Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) was an organization founded in 1903 to support white women's suffrage in Texas. It was originally formed under the name of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association (TWSA) and later renamed in 1916. TESA did ...
(TESA), organized in Houston in December 1903.
TESA was affiliated with the
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National ...
(NAWSA).
TESA sponsored a visit from
Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt (; January 9, 1859 Fowler, p. 3 – March 9, 1947) was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. Catt ...
in 1903. Finnigan tried to get women in
Austin,
Beaumont
Beaumont may refer to:
Places Canada
* Beaumont, Alberta
* Beaumont, Quebec
England
* Beaumont, Cumbria
* Beaumont, Essex
** Beaumont Cut, a canal closed in the 1930s
* Beaumont Street, Oxford
France (communes)
* Beaumont, Ardèche
* ...
and
San Antonio
("Cradle of Freedom")
, image_map =
, mapsize = 220px
, map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = United States
, subdivision_type1= State
, subdivision_name1 = Texas
, subdivision_t ...
to organize chapters of TESA, but while she reported the women there wanted to form clubs, overall they were "too timid to organize". She was only able to set up a chapter in
La Porte that year. The group held a small convention in 1904 in Houston with all of the local chapters reporting. When Annette Finnigan and her sisters moved out of Texas in 1905, the group became temporarily inactive.
In 1907 Representative
Jess A. Baker introduced women's suffrage as an amendment to the Texas constitution.
Mariana Thompson Folsom was working with Baker as an advisor on women's suffrage issues. Baker requested Texas suffragists to testify about women's suffrage. The suffragists included May Jarvis,
Helen Jarvis Kenyon,
Emma J. Mellette,
Elisabet Ney, and
Helen M. Stoddard. The amendment failed, but a positive minority decision was prepared. In addition, the effort helped revive interest in suffrage in Texas. Baker reintroduced the amendment in 1911.
In 1908,
Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw (February 14, 1847 – July 2, 1919) was a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and one of the first ordained female Methodist ministers in the United States.
Early life
Shaw ...
visited Texas, sponsored by the
Texas Federation of Women's Clubs (TFWC). A few months after she visited Austin, twenty-five people, including Folsom's daughter,
Erminia Thompson Folsom, started a women's suffrage club, which quickly almost doubled in size in a few weeks.
The group was called the Austin Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). AWSA affiliated itself with
NAWSA in 1909. AWSA was the only suffrage group in the state for several years.
When Annette Finnigan returned to Houston and became involved with the Houston Suffrage League in 1912, the women's suffrage movement in Texas was again gaining movement.
Suffrage organizing was reported in San Antonio with both men and women involved. Shaw again visited Texas in May 1912. There were around four hundred members of AWSA in November 1912, growing from only fifty-four in 1911, and the group "had distributed fifteen thousand pieces of literature".
In 1913, TESA held a convention in San Antonio at the
Saint Anthony Hotel, and seven chapters sent delegates, electing
Mary Eleanor Brackenridge president of the group.
The convention had a minor controversy over whether the group should work towards federal women's suffrage, which might be seen "as an infringement on the rights of the states." It was eventually decided to endorse a federal women's suffrage amendment.
Interviews with women in Texas reported by the ''
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'' is an American daily newspaper serving Fort Worth and Tarrant County, the western half of the North Texas area known as the Metroplex. It is owned by The McClatchy Company.
History
In May 1905, Amon G. Carter ...
'' found that many women felt that "they are human beings and have a right to vote if they want to do so."
The suffrage movement was growing in Texas.
In October 1913, Suffragists began hosting activities in support of women's suffrage at the
Texas State Fair
The State Fair of Texas is an annual state fair held in Dallas at historic Fair Park. The fair has taken place every year since 1886 except for varying periods during World War I and World War II as well as 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It ...
. A booth was rented and decorated with white and yellow and pennants reading "Votes for Women." From the booth, they were able to provide literature and gave out free women's suffrage magazines. This became an annual event.
Finnigan took over the presidency of TESA again in 1914 and worked to lobby state lawmakers and support local groups.
Finnigan was in contact with various Texas state legislators in 1914, lobbying them to include a
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
for a constitutional amendment on women's suffrage.
She moved to Austin in January 1915 in order to continue her lobbying efforts.
On January 18, 1915,
Frank H. Burmeister introduced a suffrage resolution in the Texas Legislature. The debate in the Texas House, taking place on February 23, included
anti-suffragist politicians alleging that it was "abnormal" for women to vote and that giving women the vote would lead to
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...
. Anti-suffragist, Pauline Kleiber Wells from
Brownsville was active in testifying against the provision.
Her testimony may have helped stop the passage of the amendment.
Wells claimed that women voting would cause "feminism, sex antagonism, socialism,
anarchy and
Mormonism
Mormonism is the religious tradition and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, Mormonism has been applied to various aspects of ...
".
The vote had 90 proponents, 32 against and 19 not voting; however, the resolution needed a two-thirds majority to pass. The Texas Senate also had a resolution introduced in the same legislative session, but no action was taken after its introduction.
TFWC came out in support of women's suffrage in 1915, helping to bolster the cause. Across the country, there were now eleven states that allowed women to vote. The 1915 State Fair Suffrage Day on October 23 was a successful event. Suffragists in Dallas and delegates from other Texas cities held an automobile parade to the Fair. The cars were decorated and bore the "Votes for Women" slogan. In 1915,
Minnie Fisher Cunningham
Minnie Fisher Cunningham (March 19, 1882 – December 9, 1964) was an American suffrage politician, who was the first executive secretary of the League of Women Voters, and worked for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Co ...
became president of TESA and held that role until 1919.
Finnigan retired from her work lobbying the Texas legislature in 1916 when she became partially
paralyzed
Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 5 ...
.
Major gains
Minnie Fisher Cunningham
Minnie Fisher Cunningham (March 19, 1882 – December 9, 1964) was an American suffrage politician, who was the first executive secretary of the League of Women Voters, and worked for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Co ...
, now president of TESA, began a new plan to reorganize women's efforts to fight for suffrage in Texas.
Cunningham divided the work of lobbying legislators by organizing them into state senate districts.
Cunningham,
Perle Penfield and
Eva Goldsmith were very active in lobbying the Texas Legislature.
Cunningham had obstacles in various anti-suffragist opponents including the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS) run by Pauline Kleiber Wells and Ida M. Darden, and the governor of Texas,
James E. Ferguson.
El Paso
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
sent a delegate, Mrs. George Ferguson, to the 1916 suffrage demonstration held in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
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, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and hosted by the new
National Woman's Party
The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NW ...
(NWP).
Clara Snell Wolfe and 100 other women established a Texas chapter of the NWP in 1916.
The Texas chapter was less
militant than other NWP groups.
In
Dallas County Dallas County may refer to:
Places in the USA:
* Dallas County, Alabama, founded in 1818, the first county in the United States by that name
* Dallas County, Arkansas
* Dallas County, Iowa
* Dallas County, Missouri
* Dallas County, Texas, the nin ...
, by 1916, there were thirteen local women's suffrage associations active. The Dallas suffragists again participated in a successful parade in the city in March 1916, entering their decorated car in the Style Show Parade that spelled out "Votes for Women" and "Victory in 1917." Also in March 1916, anti-suffragists organized, forming TAOWS in Houston.
TAOWS was led by Pauline Wells and published and distributed anti-suffrage fliers.
Jess Baker and other legislators introduced a new Texas constitutional amendment for women's suffrage on January 13, 1917. Baker wrote:
"Remember that the women are one-half of the human race, and, therefore, are entitled by inherent right to all the privileges accorded to men. Many women are taxpayers and should have a vote in the election of officials who make and execute laws. Women are eligible to nearly all the offices of Texas, and why shall they not be allowed to vote?"
Baker's resolution didn't receive the necessary two-thirds vote. There were 76 legislators for and 56 against.
Governor Ferguson was reelected in 1916.
He began to agitate against the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
(UT).
Ferguson felt that UT was an elitist institution and he wanted to take control of the
board of regents
In the United States, a board often governs institutions of higher education, including private universities, state universities, and community colleges. In each US state, such boards may govern either the state university system, individual c ...
, which he was able to do by January 1917.
The El Paso Equal Franchise League protested his actions against UT, saying they didn't want the school to become "part of governor Ferguson's political or financial machine." Some
alumni
Alumni (singular: alumnus (masculine) or alumna (feminine)) are former students of a school, college, or university who have either attended or graduated in some fashion from the institution. The feminine plural alumnae is sometimes used for grou ...
of UT called for Ferguson's
impeachment.
In July 1917, Ferguson was indicted on charges of
embezzlement and misuse of public funds.
In August, F. O. Fuller, the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives called a special session to consider impeaching Ferguson.
As legislators came into Austin,
Jane Y. McCallum
Jane Yelvington McCallum (December 30, 1877 – August 14, 1957) was an American politician and author, a women's suffrage and Prohibition activist, and the longest-serving Secretary of State of Texas. She attended schools in Wilson County, Texa ...
, other suffragists and even more conservative women organized protests on the
Texas Capitol
The Texas State Capitol is the capitol and seat of government of the American state of Texas. Located in downtown Austin, Texas, the structure houses the offices and chambers of the Texas Legislature and of the Governor of Texas. Designed in 1 ...
against Ferguson.
As part of the marathon sixteen hour protest, McCallum was one of the speakers who called Ferguson the "implacable foe of woman suffrage and of every great moral issue for which women stood."
Ferguson, who was an obstacle to women's suffrage, was impeached on August 25, 1917.
The United States entry into
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
on April 6, 1917 also affected suffragists in Texas.
Suffrage groups helped support the war effort.
In Dallas, suffragists marched in the Patriotic Parade held on April 9, 1917. Suffragists and suffrage organizations volunteered for the war effort. Many planted
victory garden
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I ...
s and knitted clothing for the
Red Cross
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...
to send to soldiers overseas. In Houston, suffragists ran a "food conservation education drive" in the summer of 1917. The war was one of the topics addressed at the TESA convention held in May 1917 in
Waco
Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...
.
At the convention, the suffragists agreed with
Lavinia M. Engle that "Texas and every part of Texas is ready for suffrage organization."
In June 1918, Senator
Morris Sheppard
John Morris Sheppard (May 28, 1875April 9, 1941) was a Democratic United States Congressman and United States Senator from Texas. He authored the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition) and introduced it in the Senate, and is referred to as "the fa ...
of Texas criticized the U.S. Congress for taking too much time in passing a women's suffrage amendment, especially in the midst of a war in which women had shown their own worth to the American people.
In the fall of 1917, suffragists in Texas gathered signatures in support of a woman's suffrage bill in the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
.
Suffragists in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
contacted influential business leaders and secured their endorsements for women's suffrage. Suffragists in Texas also started working with the new Texas governor,
William P. Hobby.
Ferguson again attempted to run in the Texas primary, despite his impeachment.
Suffragists pledged their support of Hobby for his next full-term election if he would, in turn support women's right to vote in the Texas
primary elections.
This provision would only need a majority of votes, not two-thirds, to pass.
Since Texas was, at the time, mostly a one-party state, the primary elections were very important.
Suffragists lobbied for the primary vote provision to be included in the special legislative session of 1918.
Charles B. Metcalfe from
San Angelo
San Angelo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Tom Green County, Texas, United States. Its location is in the Concho Valley, a region of West Texas between the Permian Basin to the northwest, Chihuahuan Desert to the southwest, Osage Pl ...
introduced the provision to allow women to vote in the Texas primary elections.
Cunningham had helped negotiate this provision with Metcalfe.
Dallas representative,
Barry Miller only promised to support the provision if the
Dallas Equal Suffrage Association (DESA) could get 5,000 signatures supporting the provision. Suffragist
Nona Boren Mahoney got more than 10,000 signatures and delivered them to Austin by suitcase. She presented these to Miller on the floor of the Texas House. Miller would go on to chair the women's suffrage caucus. The anti-suffragists in TAOWS had lobbied against the provision, but their efforts failed.
The women's primary vote provision passed both houses easily on March 21 with a vote of 84 for and 34 against in the House and 18 for and 4 against in the Texas Senate.
Governor Hobby signed it into law on March 26, though the law would not go into effect for ninety days.
This meant that women would only have 17 days to register to vote before the Texas primaries.
The registration started on June 27 and would end on July 11. Women were exempt from paying the Texas
poll tax for this vote. The suffragists worked together to mobilize. They called the women who signed the petition to Miller and also contacted women through their children's
school district
A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary and secondary schools in various nations.
North America United States
In the U.S, most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts, wh ...
s. Suffragists delivered fliers to places where women worked. Over 386,000 women registered to vote during those 17 days before the vote on July 27.
In Dallas, the oldest woman to register was 97. In El Paso, around 300 women a day registered to vote. However, many Black women in various Texas communities were turned away from registering to vote. TESA organized workshops for new voters.
An instruction pamphlet, written by
Hortense Sparks Ward was distributed throughout Texas.
El Paso suffragist,
Belle Critchett, provided voting tips for voters in the ''
El Paso Herald
The ''El Paso Herald-Post'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in El Paso, Texas, USA. It was the successor to the El Paso Herald, first published in 1881, and the El Paso Post, founded by the E. W. Scripps Company in 1922. The papers merged in 1 ...
''. In the primary vote, Hobby won by eighty percent of the total vote.
Women's votes had a significant impact on his win.
![Tesa_are_you_an_american_citizen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Tesa_are_you_an_american_citizen.jpg)
After the Texas primary in 1918, women became more politically active and started attending party conventions. In August 1918, 233 different Democratic county conventions chose to support women's suffrage in Texas. Cunningham began to lobby the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
on a federal suffrage amendment.
She was part of the team that helped convince President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
to openly support women's suffrage in 1918.
McCallum and Ward worked locally to lobby Texas politicians for a federal amendment.
Jessie Daniel Ames
Jessie Daniel Ames (November 2, 1883 – February 21, 1972) was a suffragist and civil rights leader from Texas who helped create the anti-lynching movement in the American South. She was one of the first Southern white women to speak out and ...
disagreed about the tactics and wanted Texas to pass a state amendment for the women's vote.
Governor Hobby called for a change in state law to allow women to vote in Texas. When the state legislature came to Austin in January 1919, Hobby asked for this provision but also asked that a provision to disallow
resident alien
In law, an alien is any person (including an organization) who is not a citizen or a national of a specific country, although definitions and terminology differ to some degree depending upon the continent or region. More generally, however, ...
voting in Texas be included as well. TAOWS distributed more than 100,000 pieces of anti-suffrage literature opposing the measure.
Cunningham returned to Texas to campaign for the provision and McCallum aided her as head of publicity.
Both houses passed this measure, combining the enfranchisement of women with the disenfranchisement of aliens in one voter
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
. It would go before Texas voters on May 24, 1919. On February 8, suffragists held a high society "Colonial Ball" to raise money for the campaign to support the referendum. The
NWP sponsored the
Prison Special to tour the US and the train stopped in San Antonio on February 24 and in El Paso on February 26. The tour hosted well-known suffragists who had been imprisoned for their activism and was designed to create support for the movement in Southern states. In Austin, Cunningham and TESA hosted a "suffrage school" to train volunteers to work in the women's suffrage campaign. Overall between the time the referendum left the Texas legislature and went to the voters to decide, suffrage groups hosted around 1,500 speakers and put out more than 300,000 pieces of pro-suffrage literature.
President Wilson, Senator
Charles Allen Culberson and Senator
Morris Sheppard
John Morris Sheppard (May 28, 1875April 9, 1941) was a Democratic United States Congressman and United States Senator from Texas. He authored the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition) and introduced it in the Senate, and is referred to as "the fa ...
endorsed the referendum. Nevertheless, the voter referendum failed by around 25,000 votes.
Anti-suffragists considered the failure to pass the provision a victory, while suffrage groups argued that the measure failed because resident aliens didn't want to lose the right to vote and had voted against it.
On June 4, 1919, Congress passed the
Nineteenth Amendment.
Cunningham was involved in helping to support the
ratification
Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties inte ...
effort in the West and the South for the federal women's suffrage amendment.
She would daily send several pro-suffrage editorials to politicians who were uncertain about supporting women's suffrage. McCallum again led the Texas lobbying effort.
In the special session to ratify the women's suffrage amendment, anti-suffragists Wells and Charlotte Rowe testified against the bill.
They argued that since women's suffrage had just been defeated by voters in May, that indicated that voters really didn't want women to have equal suffrage.
Suffragists argued that the measure was defeated because of the resident alien clause.
Governor Hobby put the ratification of the amendment on the legislative agenda.
On June 28, 1919, Texas ratified the amendment.
The house approved it by a vote of 96 to 21 on June 23 and the senate passed it by a voice vote five days later. Texas was the ninth state and the first
Southern state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment.
That same month the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS) disbanded.
TESA held a victory convention in October 1919 where the organization was dissolved and converted into the Texas
League of Women Voters.
African-American, Mexican women, and suffrage
Groups led by white women in Texas often excluded
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
women and even used
racist tactics to further the goal of promoting women's suffrage. When former
Confederate
Confederacy or confederate may refer to:
States or communities
* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
soldiers rebelled against
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
laws in the 1890s, there was also a backlash against the idea of giving Black women the vote.
When the
Texas Equal Suffrage Association
The Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) was an organization founded in 1903 to support white women's suffrage in Texas. It was originally formed under the name of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association (TWSA) and later renamed in 1916. TESA did ...
(TESA) was formed in 1903, Black people were not encouraged to join.
Most white women in Texas believed that excluding Black women in the movement was the best way of ensuring that women's suffrage was achieved.
Despite this, suffragists did continue to organize and register both Mexican and Black women to vote in El Paso and surrounding areas.
The Austin Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in 1913 used a racist
dog-whistle in a distributed flier as a response to the anti-suffrage talking point that letting women vote would "endanger
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
."
In the flier, the states that allowed women to vote were marked in white, emphasizing a white suffragist response that women's suffrage would double the white vote.
It was also argued by anti-suffragists that "woman suffrage would result in Negro rule in those sections of the South where colored women outnumbered white women." The Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS) had members that explicitly believed and spread the idea that women's suffrage would lead to socialism and an end to white supremacy.
Jovita Idar
Jovita Idar Vivero (September 7, 1885 – June 15, 1946) was an American journalist, teacher, political activist, and civil rights worker who championed the cause of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. Against the backdrop of the M ...
began writing articles in favor of women's suffrage in the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
language newspaper, ''La Cronica'' in 1911. In September 1911, Idar was involved in the progressive and
feminist First Mexican Congress in
Laredo.
Idar and her brother, Eduardo Idar, printed pro-suffrage articles in their Laredo newspaper, the ''Evolución'' which they began in 1916.
Between 1918 and 1920, in the cities of
El Paso
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
and
Kingsville, which had a large number of
Mexican immigrants, women of disparate backgrounds worked together on women's suffrage. In El Paso, the president of the local TESA chapter,
Belle Critchett, attempted to get black women to serve as clerks in the county election, though she was unsuccessful. She worked with
Maud Sampson on this project and both women found the rejection disappointing. The
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National ...
(NAWSA) and particularly, president of NAWSA,
Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt (; January 9, 1859 Fowler, p. 3 – March 9, 1947) was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. Catt ...
, advised TESA to try to keep black women's voices out of the issue of promoting women's suffrage. TESA denied the El Paso Colored Women's Club application to become affiliated in 1918.
During the first election that Texas women could vote in the primary, the San Antonio ''
La Prensa ''La Prensa'' ("The Press") is a frequently used name for newspapers in the Spanish-speaking world. It may refer to:
Argentina
* ''La Prensa'' (Buenos Aires)
* , a current publication of Caleta Olivia, Santa Cruz
Bolivia
* ''La Prensa'' (La Paz ...
'' published information about voting in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
. Mexican-American women were legally considered white in Texas and did not have much trouble registering to vote. In Kingsville,
Christia Adair organized women to get out the vote during the 1918 primary, however, she and the others were not allowed to vote.
In
Waxahachie
Waxahachie ( ) is the seat of government of Ellis County, Texas, United States. Its population was 41,140 in 2020.
Etymology
Some sources state that the name means "cow" or "buffalo" in an unspecified Native American language. One possible ...
, a judge ruled that Black women could vote in the 1918 primary. In Houston, around 500 Black women were able to register to vote after threatening a lawsuit from the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
(NAACP). In Dallas, nearly one hundred Black women were turned away from voting by the Dallas County sheriff. Again, in 1920, Adair along with a large group of African American women attempted to vote, but were not allowed. Two groups, the Galveston Negro Women's Voter League and the Colored Welfare League of Austin not only registered voters, but also
sued
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil acti ...
election officials who turned away Black women.
In 1921, women born in
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
who were in the process of becoming citizens lost the right to vote in Texas.
White primaries
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South ...
were created in 1923, excluding Black voters until they were overturned in 1944.
Lulu White
Lulu White (Lulu Hendley, ca. 1868 – August 20, 1931) was a brothel madam, procuress and entrepreneur in New Orleans, Louisiana during the Storyville period.Landau, EmilyLulu White, KnowLA Encyclopedia of Louisiana, 2010-11-29. Accessed ...
in Houston helped overturn the white primary system.
Her lawsuit against the practice was argued by
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...
and went to the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
(SCOTUS) in
Smith v. Allwright
''Smith v. Allwright'', 321 U.S. 649 (1944), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized parties to set thei ...
.
SCOTUS determined that white primaries were
unconstitutional
Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...
and Black women gained the right to vote in the primaries.
Black women and women living in poverty still had other issues to face in order to vote.
Texas had a
poll tax that often kept these women from voting.
The poll tax could equal a day's wages for many women.
This tax wasn't abolished until 1964.
The
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement ...
was passed in 1965 which provided Black women the legal backing to exercise their right to vote.
Anti-suffragism in Texas
Anti-suffragists
Anti-suffragism was a political movement composed of both men and women that began in the late 19th century in order to campaign against women's suffrage in countries such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. To ...
in Texas believed that allowing women to vote would result in changes in society they felt were undesirable.
They worried that allowing women to vote would interfere with their roles as mothers and homemakers.
There was also a fear in white or Anglo Texas that allowing women to vote would lead to "black domination" of the state.
Other groups of people, such as those involved in the liquor industry, textile factory owners, and those already in political power opposed women's suffrage in Texas because they did not want the
status quo to change.
A men's
social club in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
staged a mock suffrage parade in 1913. The social club members dressed as suffragists and mocked the suffrage movement.
One of the most active leaders in the anti-suffrage movement in Texas was Pauline Kleiber Wells who was from
Brownsville, Texas.
Pauline Wells was married to a powerful
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
"boss,"
James B. Wells, Jr. Pauline Wells began to campaign against women's suffrage in Texas in 1912.
She spoke out against women's suffrage in front of the Texas Legislature in 1915.
When Wells testified in front of the Texas Senate that year against women's suffrage, it was the first time a woman had spoken to that voting body.
Wells told the Senate that women really didn't want the vote and giving women the vote would lead to "feminism, sex antagonism, socialism,
anarchy and
Mormonism
Mormonism is the religious tradition and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, Mormonism has been applied to various aspects of ...
."
She was successful at helping to stop women's suffrage in Texas in 1915.
In 1916, Wells and other women formed the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS) in Houston.
Ida Darden of Fort Worth worked as the publicity director of the group.
Darden and Wells spread the idea that women's suffrage was a "
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
plot that would undermine
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
."
TAOWS received assistance from the
National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS).
TAOWS worked against the women's suffrage initiatives in Texas, passing out literature and testifying against women's vote.
The group dissolved in June 1919 after Texas ratified the
Nineteenth Amendment.
Other challenges to women's suffrage came in trying to nullify the women's primary vote in 1918. After women earned the right to vote in the Texas primaries, some individuals tried to say that women voting was
unconstitutional
Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...
.
There were plans to challenge the legal basis for the provision for women to vote in the primary.
See also
*
Elections in Texas
From 1836 to 1845, the Republic of Texas elected presidents. In 1845, it was admitted to the United States as the state of Texas.
Texas gubernatorial elections are held every four years on the nationwide Election Day, which is the Tuesday after ...
*
List of Texas suffragists
*
Timeline of women's suffrage in Texas
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Texas. Women's suffrage was brought up in Texas at the first state constitutional convention, which began in 1868. However, there was a lack of support for the proposal at the time to enfranchise women. Wo ...
*
Women's suffrage in the United States
In the 1700's to early 1800's New Jersey did allow Women the right to vote before the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 19th Amendment, but in 1807 the state restricted the right to vote to "...tax-paying, ...
*
Women's suffrage in states of the United States
Women's suffrage was established in the United States on a full or partial basis by various towns, counties, states and territories during the latter decades of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. As women received the right to ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Women's Suffrage in Texas(2019 video)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Texas women's suffrage movement
Politics of Texas
Suffrage referendums