Jessie Daniel Ames
Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1883-1972) A native of Palestine, Texas, Jessie Daniel came to Georgetown in 1893. She graduated from Southwestern University in 1902. In 1904 she moved to Laredo, where she married Roger Post Ames (d. 1914), and Army surgeon. They were the parents of three children. Following her husband's death, Jessie operated the Georgetown Telephone Company with her mother and became active in civic projects, including the Woman's Club. She joined the Texas Equal Suffrage Association and worked to acquire voting rights for women. She led a large group of women to the Williamson County Courthouse to register to vote for the first time in 1918. The Texas Equal Suffrage Association reorganized as the Texas League of Women Voters in 1919, and she served as its first president until 1924. A champion of civil rights causes, Ames was active in the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Opposed to the use of chivalry as a justification for lynching, she moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and formed the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching in 1930. She retired in 1944 and moved to Tryon, North Carolina. Ames later returned to central Texas and died in an Austin nursing home in 1972. She is buried in the I.O.O.F. Cemetery in Georgetown. (1988)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Jessie Daniel Ames grew up in Georgetown and graduated from Southwestern University before widowhood turned her toward public life. She joined the Texas Equal Suffrage Association, led local women to register to vote for the first time in 1918, and became the first president of the Texas League of Women Voters. Moving into civil rights work, she founded the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching in 1930, rejecting the claim that lynching protected white women.
Why it matters
She stands among the leading Southern reformers who linked the fight for women's suffrage to the campaign against lynching and racial violence.
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Related people
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