LibGuides: Suffrage in Texas Expanded (SITE): Biographies

S I T E Biographies

Suffrage in Texas Expanded

Suffrage in Texas Expanded (SITE) is an ongoing project to develop a digital research collection that consists of a webliography of resources that chronicle a more inclusive vision of the struggle for women’s suffrage in Texas.

Biographies (African American and Black Women)

Brannon-Wranosky, Jessica. Biographical Sketch of Maude Evangeline Craig Sampson Williams. Alexandria: Alexander Street, 2020. Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 Database. Web.
Biographical sketch of Williams who organized suffrage with the El Paso women’s community and NAACP and attempted to apply to the Equal Suffrage Organization.
Grove-Dyer, Courtney, and Brittany Richmond. “Biographical Sketch of Laura A. Moore Westbrook.” Alexandria: Alexander Street, 2018. Women and Social Movements in the United States,1600-2000 Database. Web.
Westbrook was educated by an Oberlin scholar, vice-president of Colored Teachers' Institute and active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), her Texas chapter endorsed suffrage in Texas in 1888. She was a devout woman and cited suffrage for the need to protect women from alcoholic and abusive husbands.
“Hattie Mae White.” Women in Texas History. Written by Cynthia J. Beeman. Read by Khotan Shahbazi-Harmon.
This entry discusses how White ran for the school board in Houston civic office and won in 1958, because she was told African Americans could not do so. She worked to desegregate schools and both black and white moderates worked together on her campaign. She endured a cross burned in gasoline on her lawn and her windshield being shot out. White lost her third term and returned to both teaching and clubwork, serving as a community advocate.
McArthur, Judith N. “Women and Politics,” Handbook of Texas Online.
This is an entire historical timeline of Texas women who served politically and is a great starter resource.
“Mrs. Ada Bell Williams Dement.” Ada Bell. The Crisis. Sep 1943. Vol. 50, No. 9. The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc, Baltimore. NAACP. Google Books.
Listing on Dement which cites her school building and civil rights work in black publication (273).
Park, David and Ruthe Winegarten, “Dement, Ada Bell,” Handbook of Texas Online.
Biography of the civil rights activist and president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC) in Texas.
Sersen, Julianne, and Hannah Tabachki. Biographical Sketch of Clarissa Minnie Thompson Allen. Alexandria: Alexander Street, 2020. Women and Social Movements in the United States. Web.
Sketch of Thompson that discusses her teaching, temperance and suffrage organizing in Texas. She worked specifically in Texas with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the organizations were racially divided. Thompson also organized for welfare and health based on a Progressive platform.

Rush, Gertrude E. New York: Who's Who in Colored America, 1927. Alexander Street Database. Web.
Biographical sketch of lawyer, clubwoman, organizer and suffrage activist, born in Texas, but became the first woman to practice law in Iowa.

Thomas, Marisa, and Susannah Sanford. "Eliza Eubanks Peterson." Handbook of Texas Online.
Peterson was born in Texas and lived in Texarkana. She organized with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) as leader, speaker and labor organizer, she ran a campaign tying prevention of selling alcohol (platform since 1880s) to women’s suffrage in the 1910s, again this organizing was tied to increasing black women’s rights and exalting God. In later life, she was a missionary.
Wintz, Cary D. “White, Hattie Mae Whiting.” Handbook of Texas Online.
First black woman elected to political office and school board in Houston, attempted desegregation work in the Houston schools and worked for three terms.

Biographies (Chicana and Latina Women)

"Idar, Jovita (1885–1946)." Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages, edited by Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, vol. 1, Yorkin Publications, 2007, p. 925. Gale eBooks.
A short encyclopedia entry covering her advocacy work in Laredo on suffrage including her presidency at the Mexican Feminist League.
Jeffrey, Britney. “Rangel, Irma Lerma,” Handbook of Texas Online.
First Latina woman elected to legislator who began top 10% acceptance program in Texas for college access.
Jones, Baker Nancy , rev. by Jessica Brannon-Wranosky, “Idár, Jovita,” Handbook of Texas Online.
Biographical sketch about the organizing, educational, publishing and voting work of Idar for La Liga Femenil Mexicanista.
Orozco, Cynthia. “League of United Latin American Citizens,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed June 02, 2021.
While this was a men's group mainly, it was according to Orozco open to "persons." Therefore, women occupied a more adjunct role than membership one. Specifically in the 1930s an offshoot women's group was formed. Later in the 1970s-80's, Las Comadres, the feminist council was created in El Paso as a political organization.
Orozco, Cynthia E. “Hernández, María L. de,” Handbook of Texas Online.
Biography of Hernandez which covers her political work including participating in the pecan shellers strike, founding of the Orden Caballeros de América and role in Raza Unida.
Orozco, Cynthia E. “Mujeres Por La Raza,” Handbook of Texas Online.
Latina women’s group that was an offshoot of Raza Unida political and educational organizing which ran their own third-party candidates in the 1970s.