Celebrating Women's (Voting) History

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These women in their fancy hats were among the best-dressed brawlers of their time! Their battle: just the right to pop into a voting booth and cast a ballot, just like their husbands, fathers and brothers. 

Tuesday, March 3, is Primary Election Day in Texas. I was curious about how long it took the Lone Star State to let ladies vote and hoo boy was that a journey!

Texas women first started their push in the 1880s. This photo is what some say San Antonio looked like during this time period. A time before railroads driving cattle and wagons to downtown on dusty streets. Among this hustle and bustle were women who decided they wanted to have a say in their growing state. 

Ten women combined forces in the early 1890s to organize a state-wide suffrage effort. They wanted women to have the same rights and responsibilities because, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton had declared decades earlier, men and women were "created equal." By 1895, they had the attention of the Texas Legislature. A bill to allow women to vote was referred to committee for an amendment to the Texas Constitution, but it did not advance. As much as some may have wished that was the end of that, these women persisted. They changed their strategy turning their difference (and, perhaps, perceived weakness) from men as a "maternal commonwealth."

This argument served many political agendas: Temperance advocates, for instance, wanted women to have the vote because they thought it would mobilize an enormous voting bloc on behalf of their cause, and many middle-class white people were swayed once again by the argument that the enfranchisement of white women would “ensure immediate and durable white supremacy, honestly attained.”

In 1907, they tried again. The Texas Constitutional Amendments Committee recommended against the change. Again, the women were not deterred. Instead, they grew memberships in more Texas cities - quite a feat in the pre-Internet days!

By the end of 1911, six states had given women the right to vote (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California). Texas women continued their efforts, organizing in more cities, reminding the Texas Legislature they still wanted to be heard both in their chambers and on Election Day. By 1915, the Texas Constitutional Amendments Committee recommended passing the measure to allow women to vote. However, less than two-thirds of the majority failed to pass it. 

World War I slowed the suffrage efforts, but the faithful kept at it. They continued winning over allies (men in elected office) and managed to get the Legislature to convene a Special Session in 1918, where suffrage was on the agenda - but it was conditional.

The only literacy test in Texas voting history was successfully inserted and passed as part of the primary woman suffrage law. Texas women did not have to pay their poll tax that year to vote in the primary; women in towns of more than 10,000 population had to register to vote. 

In less than three weeks, 386,000 Texas women registered to vote in the Primary Election. The candidates they supported claimed victory at the polls. They would not gain the full right to vote in all elections until after the federal women's suffrage amendment was sent to the states. Texas ratified it on June 28, 1919, making the state the ninth (and first in the South) to allow women to vote.

On August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified.

19th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It would take decades longer for black women and men to be given the same right. The 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibited race or color as reason to prohibit anyone from voting.

That's nearly 100 years of pushing to give all Americans the right to vote! I look forward to getting my sticker voting in every election - no matter who or what is on the ballot. So many women (and men) fought hard to get me in that polling site. I don't want to let them down by sitting out a single election!

Thank you to these amazing ladies and the many more who aren't mentioned but put in the work for us: 

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