A Opinion Piece For You All (I felt it was appropriate to re-post this December 2018 blog post from my original website since today is International Woman's Day)– As we have recently remembered those who died in the Great War (1914-1918), it is equally important to recognize the events that took place at home one-hundred years ago—Texas women were given the right to vote in the state primaries in 1918. State politics shifted, the masculine paradigm collapsed, and educational communities flourished after white women in the Lone Star State were given the voice to make profound and positive changes to society. Like the women in the recent #MeToo and city marches, the suffragists in 1910’s Texas were strong, persistent individuals, each of whom are valuable to Texas history.
Texas women’s right to vote in 1918 and the sequential impact women had in defining the political culture followed a pivotal year of events in Texas politics. After a controversial Senate session concerning impeachment in the summer 1917, Governor James E. Ferguson was found guilty on ten of twenty-one charges and shamefully resigned thereafter. In September 1917, Lieutenant Governor William P. Hobby took the state’s highest office (photograph of the suffragists marching in Dallas, 1918, Dallas Morning News).
Hobby’s ascent to office represented victory for several progressive groups in Texas, whose members supported prohibition and woman suffrage. Governor Hobby called a session of the Thirty-Fifth Legislature in February 1918 to discuss about the future of Texas politics. The meeting resulted in the 1918 primary suffrage bill, which was signed by the Governor on March 26, 1918, and gave white Texas women the right to vote in all primary elections. This was an important step for suffragists, who dynamically impacted Texas politics and voter society during the twentieth century.
On July 27, 1918, Annie Webb Blanton, formerly a professor of English at North Texas State Normal College in Denton, was elected the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Due to the primary suffrage bill, white women overwhelmingly voted Blanton as the first woman to hold the highest office in Texas’s Department of Education. During her four-year tenure, Blanton put the interests of schoolchildren first, as she successfully sought to reduce the influence of politicians in Texas schools. Additionally, she supported the campaigns of educated women running for school boards, made noticeable improvements to facilities and academic curriculums of Texas schools, and amended the state constitution to allow local property taxes to fund public schools. After an unsuccessful Congressional bid in 1922, Blanton continued to champion the successes of young women as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin (photograph of Blanton, 1918, Denton City Hall website).
Under the steadfast direction of Minnie Fisher Cunningham, the Texas Equal Suffrage Association worked with the Dallas Equal Suffrage Association on informing the public of the suffragists’ goals—Texas women desired to clean up politics, raise the standards of public life, and apply the values of home and family to pressing community problems. Between 1913-1917, the two organizations hosted an annual gathering called Suffrage Day, where women paraded around the grounds of the State Fair in Dallas, distributing propaganda flyers to fair goers and waving bright yellow flags that read “Votes for Women.” After the 1918 primary suffrage bill, several members of the DESA promoted the importance of woman suffrage on university campuses in Texas. Sallie Brooke Capps, the Board of Regents’ secretary at the College of Industrial Arts in Denton, persuaded the student bulletin to publish an article that offered advice and support to new woman voters on campus. Thereafter, Capps advocated for a female president at the college and continuously butted heads with male colleagues concerning the lack of academic opportunities for women and children in Texas (photograph of Capps, 1910, University of Texas at Arlington Special Collections).
History allows us to witness the stories of the underdogs and forgotten characters. Thus, the woman suffragists of 1918 Texas won the spotlight and took charge of government and society with their voice. It is important for women in Texas to continue shaping the state’s political sphere, as one sex can not solely decide the fate of the other.
No comments:
Post a Comment