Suffrage in Texas Expanded (SITE)

Hernández discusses how Latinx women’s labor organizing is tied to suffrage rights (188). Jovita Idar in the 1920s specifically tied labor to gender rights in her organizing and writing (113). Her newspaper writing strongly urged for the equality of men and women’s labors tied to the ballot box, “The obrera recognizes her rights, proudly raises her head and joins the struggle, the time of her degradation is over, she is no longer a slave sold for some coins, she is no longer a servant, but the equal of a man” (141). She was an earlier proponent, taking inspiration in the 1920s from emerging Mexican and European women’s rights movements. Esther Tijerina Chapa, a physician, who organized in Mexico/Texas in 1932 for women’s rights and suffrage, organizing the Frente Único Pro-Derechos de la Mujer (FPDM) in 1935 (117). Her argument was one based on equality and labor, “women engaged in the same kinds of activities that ‘[brought] men to political consciousness’ women thus possessed the same rights and should be allowed to vote” (117). Emma Tenayuca was an additional radical organizer and feminist from Mexico who organized cigar rollers and pecan shellers in Texas (52-54). She was arrested numerous times for her work, “ Tenayuca’s exposure to radical ideas emanating from Mexico and the revolutionary struggle there and her understanding of “American” rights combined to produce a unique perspective on issues of labor and women’s rights in the region”(54). Overwhelmingly, women were encouraged to organize for labor issues, yet in separate gendered spheres, yet taking inspiration from the revolution, many women worked tirelessly for equality.

Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award Winner Occupying Our Space sheds new light on the contributions of Mexican women journalists and writers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, marked as the zenith of Mexican journalism. Journalists played a significant role in transforming Mexican social and political life before and after the Revolution (1910-1920), and women were a part of this movement as publishers, writers, public speakers, and political activists. However, their contributions to the broad historical changes associated with the Revolution, as well as the pre- and post-revolutionary eras, are often excluded or overlooked.   This book fills a gap in feminine rhetorical history by providing an in-depth look at several important journalists who claimed rhetorical puestos, or public speaking spaces. The book closely examines the writings of Laureana Wright de Kleinhans (1842-1896), Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza (1875­-1942), the political group Las mujeres de Zitácuaro (1900), Hermila Galindo (1896-1954), and others. Grounded in the overarching theoretical lens of mestiza rhetoric, Occupying Our Space considers the ways in which Mexican women journalists negotiated shifting feminine identities and the emerging national politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With full-length Spanish primary documents along with their translations, this scholarship reframes the conversation about the rhetorical and intellectual role women played in the ever-changing political and identity culture in Mexico.
The work mainly covers Mexican writers than Tex-Mex ones. Activists such as Hermila Galindo Acosta also wrote for La Muera Moderna in 1915 about both civil rights and suffrage topics (5). There is a primary source located within the text. More broadly, Mexican origin women faced discrimination based on suffrage due to their Catholic faith (101; 188). Clarisa Pacheco de Torres also wrote a treatise in 1915 citing the need for the vote, translated within the text based on humanitarian reasons in 1915 (177). Mexico did not give women the right to vote until 1953, limited rights in 1947 (192).

Founded by Mexican American men in 1929, the League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC) has usually been judged according to Chicano nationalist standards of the late 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on extensive archival research, including the personal papers of Alonso S. Perales and Adela Sloss-Vento, No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed presents the history of LULAC in a new light, restoring its early twentieth-century context. Cynthia Orozco also provides evidence that perceptions of LULAC as a petite bourgeoisie, assimilationist, conservative, anti-Mexican, anti-working class organization belie the realities of the group's early activism. Supplemented by oral history, this sweeping study probes LULAC's predecessors, such as the Order Sons of America, blending historiography and cultural studies. Against a backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, World War I, gender discrimination, and racial segregation, No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed recasts LULAC at the forefront of civil rights movements in America.
Orozco discusses the complications of living in South Texas in the 1920s due to the racist policies including the literacy tests within voting that disenfranchised both Mexican women and men from voting (35-36). In 1927, voting rights were stripped due to the provision of anyone foreign made unable to vote (47). Author defines the movement broadly as organizing between 1920-1965 for Mexican civil rights in America, including voting, which was limited (188). Jovita Idar generally organized in separate spheres (79). Mexican immigrants were treated second class and often denied voting rights, plus poll taxes and migrant labor made it nearly impossible to enact suffrage (105). Appendices include useful primary sources organizational statements for Tex-Mex voting and organizing in the 1920s.

This critical bilingual anthology collects and contextualizes thirty-four primary writings of understudied revolutionary mexicana rhetors and social activists who published with presses within the United States and Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--a time of cross-border revolutionary upheaval and change. These mexicana newspaperwomen leveraged diverse and compelling rhetorical strategies and used the press to advance the early feminist movement in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest; to define their rights and roles in and confront the hypocrisies of their societies' patriarchal systems; to engage in important debates about education, women's rights, and language instruction; and to protest injustices in society and construct possible solutions. Because these presses were in both Mexico and the United States, their writings offer opportunities to explore the concerns, struggles, and triumphs of mexicanas in both U.S. and Mexican cities and throughout the borderlands.   Mestiza Rhetorics is the first anthology dedicated to mexicana rhetors and provides unmatched access to mexicana rhetorics. This collection puts forward the work of mexicana newspaperwomen in Spanish and English, provides evidence of their participation in political and educational debates at the turn of the twentieth century, and demonstrates how the Spanish-language press operated as a rhetorical space for Mexicana's.
Rhetorical strategies of Mexican women journalists including indigenous/European/Anglo status- kept out, not speak in public or have a job, they had to stay in the home, work and this book studies the concept of occupying a rhetorical space (“Introduction”). Women were trying to claim the power that they had lost within these feminist rhetorical histories, they were daughters of ancient tradition and writing in complex Spanish. Jovita Idar’s publications organizing within educational and political spheres were just emerging in a suffrage consciousness, based on what happened in the US. Ariana ‘Anonymous’ asks where do women fit in the home? Women writing had to cover up their identity hence the need for research; they were philosophizing and testing the waters in public of these concepts of what feminism is and is not.

This work is an amazing collection of primary sources on Texas women’s political activism, shining a light on the unseen activists such as Christina Adair and Sarah Travers. Black clubwomen organized in Texas during the progressive era and were often middle class, light skinned, teachers, without many resources, they pooled their resources together and met often in private homes to organize for suffrage (20). When voting was granted in the Democratic white primaries it was equivalent to suffrage in Texas, because the Republican party was small in Texas and didn’t hold primaries (31). Black women tried to register, but in Houston were refused in 1918 (32). Adair with the NAACP advocated for the removal of the white primary which ended in 1944 (32). Texas was one of the last states to provide women with the opportunity to serve on juries in 1954 (165), like suffrage only women who paid poll and property taxes could serve. As Orozco said regarding Chicana women, there was no representation in voting and like black women, Chicana’s were doubly marginalized and there was no sense of Tex-Mex female identity in the 1920s. This is social history at its very best.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a majority of the Mexican immigrant population in the United States resided in Texas, making the state a flashpoint in debates over whether to deny naturalization rights. As Texas federal courts grappled with the issue, policies pertaining to Mexican immigrants came to reflect evolving political ideologies on both sides of the border. Drawing on unprecedented historical analysis of state archives, U.S. Congressional records, and other sources of overlooked data, Naturalizing Mexican Immigrants provides a rich understanding of the realities and rhetoric that have led to present-day immigration controversies. Martha Menchaca's groundbreaking research examines such facets as U.S.-Mexico relations following the U.S. Civil War and the schisms created by Mexican abolitionists; the anti-immigration stance that marked many suffragist appeals; the effects of the Spanish American War; distinctions made for mestizo, Afromexicano, and Native American populations; the erosion of means for U.S. citizens to legalize their relatives; and the ways in which U.S. corporations have caused the political conditions that stimulated emigration from Mexico. The first historical study of its kind, Naturalizing Mexican Immigrants delivers a clear-eyed view of provocative issues.
State convention in 1912 popularized suffrage (same issues/fear of alienating men) in Latina communities (218). However, the poll tax was waived in 1919 if a woman filled out a certificate form (without assistance) therefore, this was a sly test of literacy and English language proficiency, disenfranchising Mexican women from voting (221). First group was La Liga Femenil Mexicanista mainly school and educational (223). El Paso Equal Franchise League member E. Sampson (Maud Edith Sampson) tried to join the Texas Equal Suffrage League, but was denied (225-227).

Garcia et al. writes a historical record of all the Latina women who have held office in TX, judges, representatives, mayors and council members as they reflect on their political experiences.

Winner, Texas Reference Source Award, Reference Round Table, Texas Library Association, 2003T.R. Fehrenbach Award, Texas Historical Commission, 2004 Since the early 1700s, women of Spanish/Mexican origin or descent have played a central, if often unacknowledged, role in Texas history. Tejanas have been community builders, political and religious leaders, founders of organizations, committed trade unionists, innovative educators, astute businesswomen, experienced professionals, and highly original artists. Giving their achievements the recognition they have long deserved, this groundbreaking book is at once a general history and a celebration of Tejanas' contributions to Texas over three centuries. The authors have gathered and distilled a wide range of information to create this important resource. They offer one of the first detailed accounts of Tejanas' lives in the colonial period and from the Republic of Texas up to 1900. Drawing on the fuller documentation that exists for the twentieth century, they also examine many aspects of the modern Tejana experience, including Tejanas' contributions to education, business and the professions, faith and community, politics, and the arts. A large selection of photographs, a historical timeline, and profiles of fifty notable Tejanas complete the volume and assure its usefulness for a broad general audience, as well as for educators and historians.
Acotsa and Palomo’s book provides a wealth of information about Tejana and Texas specific activism on all topics, but specific to the project is the political organizing work. For example, the Mexican American League and Legal Defense fund was crucial in organizing and having the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed (191). An unsung Tejana hero is Vilma Martinez, a Texas attorney who assisted (191). Another example of Tejana political work is Judith Papas Zaffirini Texas, third woman elected to the Senate from the 21st district and the only senator with a 100% attendance record (271).

Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives engages current scholarship on women in Texas, the South, and the United States. It provides insights into Texas's singular geographic position, bordering on the West and sharing a unique history with Mexico, while analyzing the ways in which Texas stories mirror a larger American narrative. The biographies and essays illustrate an uncommon diversity among Texas women, reflecting experiences ranging from those of dispossessed enslaved women to wealthy patrons of the arts. That history also captures the ways in which women's lives reflect both personal autonomy and opportunities to engage in the public sphere. From the vast spaces of northern New Spain and the rural counties of antebellum Texas to the growing urban centers in the post-Civil War era, women balanced traditional gender and racial prescriptions with reform activism, educational enterprise, and economic development. Contributors to Texas Women address major questions in women's history, demonstrating how national and regional themes in the scholarship on women are answered or reconceived in Texas. Texas women negotiated significant boundaries raised by gender, race, and class. The writers address the fluid nature of the border with Mexico, the growing importance of federal policies, and the eventual reforms engendered by the civil rights movement. From Apaches to astronauts, from pioneers to professionals, from rodeo riders to entrepreneurs, and from Civil War survivors to civil rights activists, the subjects of Texas Women offer important contributions to Texas history, women's history, and the history of the nation.
This work devotes chapters to Jovita Idar and Barbara Jordan's tireless efforts in Texas to secure voting rights.

Winner, 2019 Liz Carpenter Award, sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) In recent decades, a small but growing number of historians have dedicated their tireless attention to analyzing the role of women in Texas history. Each contribution--and there have been many--represents a brick in the wall of new Texas history. From early Native societies to astronauts, Women in Texas History assembles those bricks into a carefully crafted structure as the first book to cover the full scope of Texas women's history. By emphasizing the differences between race and ethnicity, Angela Boswell uses three broad themes to tie together the narrative of women in Texas history. First, the physical and geographic challenges of Texas as a place significantly affected women's lives, from the struggles of isolated frontier farming to the opportunities and problems of increased urbanization. Second, the changing landscape of legal and political power continued to shape women's lives and opportunities, from the ballot box to the courthouse and beyond. Finally, Boswell demonstrates the powerful influence of social and cultural forces on the identity, agency, and everyday life of women in Texas. In challenging male-dominated legal and political systems, Texan women shaped (and were shaped by) class, religion, community organizations, literary and artistic endeavors, and more. Women in Texas History is the first book to narrate the entire span of Texas women's history and marks a major achievement in telling the full story of the Lone Star State. Historians and general readers alike will find this book an informative and enjoyable read for anyone interested in the history of Texas or the history of women.

"Rarely has a short book accomplished so much as Terborg-Penn's seminal work. With the utmost attention to detail Terborg-Penn examines the contributions of black suffragist stalwarts . . . It undoubtedly will become the definitive work on African American women's involvement in the mainstream woman suffrage movement and specifically on black women's struggle for the vote." --Choice " . . . this is a well-written overview of a crucial aspect of African American history that would be ideal for the college classroom." --Journal of American History " . . . not only a major contribution to suffrage history . . . but also a powerful indictment of white suffrage activists who were able to see beyond the sexism but not the racism of their society." --Journal of Southern History "This groundbreaking volume provides a theoretical and practical framework for new paradigms in African American women's history. . . . All Black politicians should read and discuss this unique and brilliant book. Many lessons can be learned." --Philadelphia New Observer This comprehensive look at the African American women who fought for the right to vote analyzes the women's own stories and examines why they joined and how they participated in the U.S. women's suffrage movement. Terborg-Penn shows how every political and racial effort to keep African American women disfranchised met with their active resistance until black women finally achieved full citizenship.
There were two organizations promoting black women's right to vote in Texas: the Colored Welfare League of Austin and the Negro Women's League of Galveston (146). In Houston the NAACP made a copy of the bill giving all women a right to vote to show at the polls (147). In Kingsville specifically according to Christia Adair, black women were turned away leading to the monumental case destroying the white primary in Texas (148). Overall what the ballot meant to black women in Texas was political access.

Though often consigned to the footnotes of history, African American women are a significant part of the rich, multiethnic heritage of Texas and the United States. Until now, though, their story has frequently been fragmented and underappreciated. Black Women in Texas History draws together a multi-author narrative of the experiences and impact of black American women from the time of slavery until the recent past. Each chapter, written by an expert on the era, provides a readable survey and overview of the lives and roles of black Texas women during that period. Each provides careful documentation, which, along with the thorough bibliography compiled by the volume editors, will provide a starting point for others wanting to build on this important topic. The authors address significant questions about population demographics, employment patterns, family and social dimensions, legal and political rights, and individual accomplishments. They look not only at how African American women have been shaped by the larger culture but also at how these women have, in turn, affected the culture and history of Texas. This work situates African American women within the context of their times and offers a due appreciation and analysis of their lives and accomplishments. Black Women in Texas History is an important addition to history and sociology curriculums as well as black studies and women’s studies programs. It will provide for interested students, scholars, and general readers a comprehensive survey of the crucial role these women played in shaping the history of the Lone Star State.

Texas primaries were essentially Democratic controlled, therefore, the white primary ruled in Texas until 1944, stripping black Texas women from voting (115). Prior to that in 1915, black Texas women could not vote due to both the state and national constitution (110). In 1918 women such as Christia Adair were still not allowed to vote, although they did register (114). In areas such as Galveston and Austin black women did organize voting leagues and organizations, but black women were denied the vote in Orange, Austin and Fort Worth (148). Specifically, in Fort Worth, black women were turned away due to their race (the source notes they were well dressed, even respectability politics could not grant a vote). What this work proves is that black women have always been politically organizing and working to vote, even when their rights have been disregarded. The 1965 Voting Rights Act increased voting registration by nearly thirty percent (199). Three black women represented Texas in the House (so far) Barbara Jordan, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas has a strong history of black women lawyers and representatives (199).