The Woman Suffrage Movement in Texas
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Legal efforts to enfranchise women in Texas can be traced to 1868, when Rep. T. H. Mundine of Burleson introduced a woman suffrage bill in the state legislature. In the following five decades Texas women formed suffrage organizations to lobby for the right to vote. The suffragists included Rebecca Henry Hayes, who organized the Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA) in 1893; and sisters Annette, Elizabeth, and Katherine Finnigan, who founded the Texas Woman Suffrage Association (TWSA) in 1903. The TWSA, renamed the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) in 1916, led the final push for voting rights. The movement's leaders during this period included Jane Y. McCallum, Minnie Fisher Cunningham, Eleanor Brackenridge, and Annie Webb Blanton. In March 1918 Rep. C. B. Metcalfe of San Antonio sponsored successful legislation giving women the right to vote in primary elections. It was signed into law by Gov. William P. Hobby just 17 days before the voter registration deadline for that year's election. In that short period of time, more than 386,000 Texas women registered to vote, including many who gathered at the Travis County Courthouse at this site. On June 28, 1919, Texas became the 9th state to ratify the Woman Suffrage (19th) Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. (1991)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
For half a century Texas women organized, petitioned, and lobbied for the ballot, from the first suffrage bill filed in 1868 to a cascade of associations that culminated in the Texas Equal Suffrage Association. Their breakthrough came in March 1918, when the legislature granted women the vote in primary elections and more than 386,000 rushed to register in just seventeen days. On June 28, 1919, Texas became the first Southern state and the ninth in the nation to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment.
Why it matters
It marks Texas as an unexpected early Southern victory in the national fight for women's suffrage, showing how decades of grassroots organizing turned into constitutional change.
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Related people
- · Jane Y. McCallum
- · Minnie Fisher Cunningham
- · Annie Webb Blanton
- · Rebecca Henry Hayes
- · Gov. William P. Hobby
Related events
- · Texas ratification of the 19th Amendment (1919)
- · 1918 Texas primary suffrage law
Themes & tags
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