Women's suffrage efforts in Texas began in 1868 at the first Texas Constitutional Convention. In both Constitutional Conventions and subsequent legislative sessions, efforts to allow women the right to vote were introduced, only to be defeated. Early Texas suffragists such as Martha Goodwin Tunstall and Mariana Thompson Folsom worked with national suffrage groups in the 1870s and 1880s. It wasn't until 1893 and the creation of the Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA) by Rebecca Henry Hayes of Galveston that Texas had a statewide women's suffrage organization. Members of TERA lobbied politicians and political party conventions on women's suffrage. Due to an eventual lack of interest and funding, TERA was inactive by 1898. In 1903, women's suffrage organizing was revived by Annette Finnigan and her sisters. These women created the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) in Houston in 1903. TESA sponsored women's suffrage speakers and testified on women's suffrage in front of the Texas Legislature. In 1908 and 1912, speaking tours by Anna Howard Shaw helped further renew interest in women's suffrage in Texas. TESA grew in size and suffragists organized more public events, including Suffrage Day at the Texas State Fair. By 1915, more and more women in Texas were supporting women's suffrage. The Texas Federation of Women's Clubs officially supported women's suffrage in 1915. Also that year, anti-suffrage opponents started to speak out against women's suffrage and in 1916, organized the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS). TESA, under the political leadership of Minnie Fisher Cunningham and with the support of Governor William P. Hobby, suffragists began to make further gains in achieving their goals. In 1918, women achieved the right to vote in Texas primary elections. During the registration drive, 386,000 Texas women signed up during a 17-day period. An attempt to modify the Texas Constitution by voter referendum failed in May 1919, but in June 1919, the United States Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment. Texas became the ninth state and the first Southern state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on June 28, 1919. This allowed white women to vote, but African American women still had trouble voting, with many turned away, depending on their communities. In 1923, Texas created white primaries, excluding all Black people from voting in the primary elections. The white primaries were overturned in 1944 and in 1964, Texas's poll tax was abolished. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, promising that all people in Texas had the right to vote, regardless of race or gender.
Early efforts
Titus H. Mundine, an early leader in the Republican Party from Burleson County, brought up a proposition to allow every eligible voter the right to vote, regardless of sex during the 1868-1869 Texas Constitutional Convention. A small group of women were also behind the push for the proposition; and out of the ten African American delegates to the convention, six supported women's suffrage. Martha Goodwin Tunstall spoke in support of women's suffrage in Austin at a meeting of the Austin Friends of Female Suffrage before the final vote. The proposal of granting women's suffrage was defeated by a vote of 52 to 13.
Tunstall went on to become the vice president of the Texas chapter of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). In 1872, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) contacted the Texas Legislature to petition for women's suffrage. In 1873, Texas senator, Albert Jennings Fountain of El Paso, proposed extending suffrage to women. His proposal was defeated in the Texas senate.
In the second Texas Constitutional Convention held in 1875, women's suffrage was again introduced. W.G.T. Weaver from Cooke County was one of the men who introduced a resolution to grant women's suffrage, but his proposal died in the committee.
In 1884, minister and suffragist Mariana Thompson Folsom came to Texas. She acted as the main Texas contact for the AWSA and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Folsom was in contact with Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell who both felt that Texas needed to organize, but that the state may not yet be ready for women's suffrage. Folsom did some tours of the state in 1884. On her tours, Folsom recorded that she was surprised by the "timidity" of women in Texas, who seemed to be afraid to be seen in public spaces. In 1885, a suffragist in Texas attempted to send one thousand signatures on a women's suffrage petition to the Texas legislature. However, she found that many supporters of suffrage were hesitant to publicly add their names for fear of "losing 'prestige.'"
Rebecca Henry Hayes, a suffragist living in Galveston, began to correspond with Laura Clay of NAWSA in late 1892 and early 1893. In April 1893, Hayes and ten other women in Texas sent out invitations for a convention to be held to create a statewide women's suffrage group which would be called the Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA). The first meeting took place at the Grand Windsor Hotel in Dallas on May 10, 1893 and Hayes was elected the first president of the organization. Around fifty people came together to form TERA, and one-fifth of the members were men. Many of the women involved in the formation of TERA were members of the Texas chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). TERA advocated for women's right to vote, but also supported other rights, such as a women's right to serve on juries. TERA had local chapters formed in Beaumont, Belton, Circleville, Dallas, Denison, Fort Worth, Granger, San Antonio, and Taylor in 1893 and 1894. During 1894, Folsom toured Texas, speaking about women's suffrage in 83 different locations. In 1895, Elizabeth Good Houston became the TERA president and the group sponsored a lecture tour from Folsom. On these later tours, Folsom found that more Texas were interested in women's suffrage.
In the summer of 1894, suffragists attempted to get women's suffrage added as planks in the major political party platforms. Suffragists reached out to the Democratic, Populist and Republican parties. Mrs. L. A. Craig spoke to the Democratic convention on behalf of the Dallas TERA, but they declined to endorse women's suffrage in the Democratic party platform. Other parties also declined. In August, the Dallas group called on Governor James Stephen Hogg to visit Dallas and listen to the women make their case for equal suffrage.
TERA was seriously divided in late 1894 over the question of bringing Susan B. Anthony to speak in Texas. As a Northerner, a "Yankee" and an abolitionist, she was not seen as a welcome guest to some Texans who had been part of the Confederacy. TERA members who wanted her to visit Texas felt that she would invigorate the fight for women's suffrage in Texas. The group could not reach a decision and when Hayes declared that she would not support Anthony's visit, she was removed as president by the executive committee. Elizabeth A. Fry was elected president, but Hayes would not recognize her authority, leaving the organization run by two presidents for a period of time. Fry gave in and Hayes served as president again, but in 1895 Elizabeth Good Houston was elected the next president over Hayes.
Houston toured several Texas cities and helped to organize suffrage days there. She set up county presidents to help organize smaller local clubs in their respective counties. However, there was less interest in women's suffrage after 1895, despite what Houston tried. In 1895, another legislative attempt at granting women's suffrage is introduced by Representative A.C. Tompkins of Hempstead, but it was unsuccessful. There was some work on TERA done by Mrs. L. A. Craig of Waco in 1897. TERA, however, never had a large amount of funds and by 1898, the group had basically dissolved. After the dissolution of TERA, there was a decline in interest in women's suffrage in Texas. The Texas chapter of NAWSA did not pay its national dues for the year of 1900 and NAWSA decided that the chapter was defunct.
Renewal of efforts
Annette Finnigan and her sisters, Elizabeth Finnigan Fain and Katherine Finnigan Anderson, began to revive the women's suffrage movement in Texas in 1903. Between the three of them, they created equal suffrage leagues in Houston and Galveston. These led to the creation of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA), organized in Houston in December 1903. TESA was affiliated with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). TESA sponsored a visit from Carrie Chapman Catt in 1903. Finnigan tried to get women in Austin, Beaumont and San Antonio to organize chapters of TESA, but while she reported the women there wanted to form clubs, overall they were "too timid to organize". She was only able to set up a chapter in La Porte that year. The group held a small convention in 1904 in Houston with all of the local chapters reporting. When Annette Finnigan and her sisters moved out of Texas in 1905, the group became temporarily inactive.
In 1907 Representative Jess A. Baker introduced women's suffrage as an amendment to the Texas constitution. Mariana Thompson Folsom was working with Baker as an advisor on women's suffrage issues. Baker requested Texas suffragists to testify about women's suffrage. The suffragists included May Jarvis, Helen Jarvis Kenyon, Emma J. Mellette, Elisabet Ney, and Helen M. Stoddard. The amendment failed, but a positive minority decision was prepared. In addition, the effort helped revive interest in suffrage in Texas. Baker reintroduced the amendment in 1911.
In 1908, Anna Howard Shaw visited Texas, sponsored by the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs (TFWC). A few months after she visited Austin, twenty-five people, including Folsom's daughter, Erminia Thompson Folsom, started a women's suffrage club, which quickly almost doubled in size in a few weeks. The group was called the Austin Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). AWSA affiliated itself with NAWSA in 1909. AWSA was the only suffrage group in the state for several years.
When Annette Finnigan returned to Houston and became involved with the Houston Suffrage League in 1912, the women's suffrage movement in Texas was again gaining movement. Suffrage organizing was reported in San Antonio with both men and women involved. Shaw again visited Texas in May 1912. There were around four hundred members of AWSA in November 1912, growing from only fifty-four in 1911, and the group "had distributed fifteen thousand pieces of literature".
In 1913, TESA held a convention in San Antonio at the Saint Anthony Hotel, and seven chapters sent delegates, electing Mary Eleanor Brackenridge president of the group. The convention had a minor controversy over whether the group should work towards federal women's suffrage, which might be seen "as an infringement on the rights of the states." It was eventually decided to endorse a federal women's suffrage amendment.
Interviews with women in Texas reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram found that many women felt that "they are human beings and have a right to vote if they want to do so." The suffrage movement was growing in Texas. In October 1913, Suffragists began hosting activities in support of women's suffrage at the Texas State Fair. A booth was rented and decorated with white and yellow and pennants reading "Votes for Women." From the booth, they were able to provide literature and gave out free women's suffrage magazines. This became an annual event.