Although dismissively labeled as “petticoat lobbyists” by Texas legislators of the early 20th century, the clubwomen of the Lone Star State put their rising power and influence to good use in the Progressive Era to aid myriad social causes for the betterment of their communities.

A member of the Baylor Woman Suffrage Club “bangs the drum” for her cause. The Baylor Round Table in 1920 endorsed the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment” to the Constitution, which was ratified by Texas.
Texas Collection at Baylor University photo

Using the political skills gained through their work in the temperance campaign (McLennan County went “dry” in 1917, Texas in 1918 and the entire nation in 1920), these crusaders of the Texas Women Suffrage Association reorganized the movement at the grass roots level to generate wider public support.

They trooped door-to-door, toddlers in tow, with petitions; they wrote tirelessly to newspapers and periodicals; they conducted small public meetings and mass rallies; staffed suffrage booths at community events; conducted fundraisers; and printed and distributed reams of literature on their aims.

Although clubwomen politely petitioned legislators, they also knew to go loud and go public.

Flashy parades of banner-toting women who pounded the pavement or spoke boldly into bullhorns from their Model Ts provided proof across the state that Texas women wanted the right to vote.

Eventually, they won the right in 1917 to vote in state and local primary elections, vowing to help “clean house” in politics.

Joint Legislative Council

The Joint Legislative Council was an outgrowth of the female suffrage movement in Texas. It consisted of a consortium of organizations, including the League of Women Voters, the Mothers’ Congress (ancestor of today’s Texas Parent-Teacher Association), the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs.

A parade of activists in Waco, circa 1915, for women’s voting rights demonstrated local support for a state suffragette amendment — a movement that ultimately failed by only three votes in the Texas Legislature.
Texas Collection at Baylor University photo

Promoting “women’s issues” in the state Legislature for the five sessions that followed the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave American women the right to vote, pairs of polite but persistent Joint Legislative Council representatives would pressure lawmakers on issues such as eradication of child labor, passage of alcohol prohibition, funding for mother-child nutrition and prison reform.

Their arguments were startling to those male legislators unaccustomed to women asserting themselves in public forums. 

These were women, after all, who had been urged to in prior generations to lift their skirts and “step out of the dirty mire of politics.” Instead, they adjusted their bustles and waded right in.

Additional sources: Handbook of Texas online, www.tsl.state.tx.us; NowTexas.org; TheAutry.org; “A Spirit so Rare: A History of the Women of Waco” by Patricia Ward Wallace; and “Texas Women: A Pictorial History, From Indians to Astronauts” by Ruthe Winegarten.

The July 1912 issue of Texas Motherhood Magazine argued that a politically active woman could be a dedicated mother.
Texas Women: A Pictorial History image

An artist’s fanciful take on women’s battle for voting rights enlists babies in an “infant’try.”
Texas Collection at Baylor University photo