Top 25 Moments for Women in Texas History

Certainly the most recognizable female Texas governor (there have been only two), Ann Richards began her political career during a very exciting time in Texas and US history. Now in paperback, the award-winning Let the People In by Jan Reid situates Gov. Richards in this lively political period. Because of her influence, personality, and the fact there hasn’t been a Democrat in the Texas governor’s mansion for the last eighteen years, people continue to talk about her life and political career. Most recently, the media recalled Gov. Richards and her politics—especially her work with Sarah Weddington who successfully argued Roe vs. Wade in the Supreme Court in 1973—as Texas State Senator Wendy Davis undertook her marathon filibuster in the Texas legislature earlier this year.

To celebrate the paperback edition, we’ve rounded up twenty-five key moments of women in Texas politics. We would like to thank the Ruthe Winegarten Memorial Foundation for Texas Women’s History for compiling an extensive timeline of historical moments for Texas women on their website, womenintexashistory.org.

Watch the progression of women in Texas over the course of roughly 1,313 years.

1
Circa 700: Some women of the Caddo tribe, in present-day east and northeast Texas, become priest-chiefs (xinesí), thus possessing religious and political authority. Read more about the Caddo tribe in The Caddo Nation.

'Kaw-u-tz (Cado)'via Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library
digitalcollections.smu.edu/u?/wes,539

2

Circa 1686: The Caddo tribe elects a woman chief.

3

1731: Women are among the 56 Canary Islanders who establish first permanent civilian settlement in San Antonio. María Robaina Betancour is a leader of the settlement.

4

1872: Martha Bickler, a clerk for the General Land Office, is the first female state employee.

5

1902: Mrs. L. P. Carlisle becomes the first woman office holder in Texas, appointed to succeed her husband as Hunt County Clerk.

6
1912: Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, tours Texas and revives interest in woman suffrage. As a result, local suffrage leagues form in Houston, Galveston, Dallas, and San Antonio. (Austin had formed one in 1908).

7

1913: Texas suffragists hold their first state convention. Eleanor Brackenridge of San Antonio is elected state president and revitalizes the Texas Woman Suffrage Association, which grows to 2,500 members in one year.

8
1919-20: Black women vote for the first time in Texas. Three Houston women run for office on the "Black and Tan" ticket of the Republican Party (state representative, Harris County clerk, and school superintendent). Mrs. R. L. Yocome, unsuccessful candidate for state representative, may be first Texas woman to run for a legislative position.

9
1924: Miriam A. Ferguson, running on an anti-Ku Klux Klan ticket, is the first woman elected Governor of Texas. She drives an anti-mask bill through the legislature to combat Klan practices.

Miriam Amanda Wallace Ferguson (1875 - 1961)