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April 8, 2025
Today in Texas History
On this day in 1893, 10 Texas women, mostly members of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, issued a call for a statewide woman suffrage convention. The Texas Equal Rights Association, the first such statewide organization, was chartered at the ensuing three-day convention in Dallas.
Internal dissension plagued the TERA, which had been organized as a branch of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and it ceased to operate by 1896. In 1903, Annette Finnigan helped organize a successor organization, the Texas Equal Suffrage Association, which helped lead the long and ultimately successful fight for woman suffrage.
Texas women were finally granted the right to vote in primary elections in 1918, and in June 1919 Texas became the ninth state (and the first in the south) to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which extended full suffrage to women.
Internal dissension plagued the TERA, which had been organized as a branch of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and it ceased to operate by 1896. In 1903, Annette Finnigan helped organize a successor organization, the Texas Equal Suffrage Association, which helped lead the long and ultimately successful fight for woman suffrage.
Texas women were finally granted the right to vote in primary elections in 1918, and in June 1919 Texas became the ninth state (and the first in the south) to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which extended full suffrage to women.