the cook, . During her term, she appoints women as forty-seven percent of her staff and more women and minorities to positions on state boards and commissions than two previous governors combined. Genuine control of property required the right to make contracts, and in this respect Texas law remained discriminatory for many years. A new constitutional congress in Mexico decrees that slave trade should be prohibited "forever." Sarah Barnes, a white missionary, founds the first normal school or teacher institute for blacks in Texas, the Barnes Institute in Galveston. In 1919, Cunningham was recruited by the National Woman Suffrage Association to lobby Congress, and her efforts paid off not just for her state but for her nation. Any slaves brought into Mexico in violation are to be freed. Ellie Walls Montgomery is the first female president of the Colored Teachers State Association of Texas. More than 1,000 women complete flight training in Houston and at Avenger Field, Sweetwater, to become Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). “In this way,” Stuntz said, “women gradually earned the right to own property in their own name even after marriage, to control female businesses such as laundries, bakeries and water wells, and to be recognized as important citizens of frontier cities.”. Baylor graduate Marjorie Morris Scardino becomes the first female chief executive of a. Lucía Madrid opens a library in her family's store in Redford, near the Rio Grande, to serve the local community. Although the University of Texas integrates its classes for undergraduates, African Americans are barred from varsity athletics and dormitories. Progress has come in fits and starts. The American G. I. Houston College in Houston is reorganized as Texas State University for Negroes (later Texas Southern University). A Adina De Zavala, San Antonio, founds the Texas Historical and Landmarks Association. Adelyn Bernstein and Doris Lasher help found the Houston Area Women's Center, one of many resource and educational centers established in the wake of the 1970s women's movement. Texas Woman's University proudly celebrates the centennial of this historic event, as well as the moments in history that made it possible. Despite this modest progress on the state bench, women continued to lag behind as district attorneys, advancing from 4 of 329 statewide in 1980 to only 7 in 361 by 1990. The November election shifted power at the Texas Capitol away from the anti-woman far-right by putting more women and Democrats into office. J. Pinckney Henderson, runs his law office in San Augustine and handles cases when her husband and his partners are out of town. The Texas Equal Rights Association, the first statewide woman suffrage organization, formed in Dallas with approximately 50 members, one-fifth of whom were men. Kathy Whitmire is elected the first female mayor of Houston. Under Spanish rule, women could own, buy and sell property based on Spanish laws that dated back to the 13th century but lost those rights when Texas became its own country. Reports by Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca reveal that Indian women serve as mediators and emissaries, helping to establish diplomatic relations with other Indian peoples. Elizabeth York Enstam, State Rep. Frances "Sissy" Farenthold runs unsuccessfully for governor; she is the first woman in U.S. history nominated for vice president and voted on at the Democratic National Convention. Despite their apparent progress during the years of the suffrage campaign and their success in winning passage of legislation during the decade afterwards, women's advance into lawmaking positions evaporated. A laundress is sentenced to two years for allegedly stealing a nightgown. Forum of Texas, a civil rights organization for. Lucy and Albert Parsons of Waco, a mixed couple, flee racism for Chicago. Alice Bonner of Houston becomes judge of the 80th State District Court. … Slave women work in the fields, cook, clean, wash, iron, spin, sew, weave, care for white children, and also serve as wet nurses and midwives. Texas women are henceforth allowed to vote in elections at all levels. Debbie Allen, a native of Houston, wins an Emmy for her role in the television series Fame. Some women work as domestics for wages, at an average salary of five dollars a month. Houston native J. E. Franklin has her play. . Lori Cook, "A Demographic Profile of Texas Attorneys," Texas Bar Journal 56 (December 1993). The League of United Latin American Citizens, the longest active civil rights organization for U.S. citizens of Mexican descent, is founded in Corpus Christi. Houston's Colored Carnegie Library opens. Mayor Juan Seguín and others of Mexican descent are forced to flee to Mexico for supporting the Texian cause. From 1917 to 1928, Katherine Stinson was the nation's foremost daredevil stunt pilot. The law made no provision for appealing the judge's decision, but if he agreed, she had the rights to contract freely and to sue and be sued "as in any other cases." Mary Miller, a black woman, sues in federal court after being denied a seat in a Galveston theater. “She could own separate property that she brought to a marriage and share equally in any wealth amassed from the union, but her legal existence was ‘covered’ or controlled by her husband,” the professor added. Dr. Mae C. Jemison, Houston, is the first African American woman in space, serving as a science mission specialist on NASA's space shuttle. As Spain established new settlements in Texas, something had to be done to entice Spanish women to give up the comforts of home and settle with their families in remote, inhospitable, dangerous lands on the frontier. The Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA) was formed at a convention in Dallas that May. She is the first victim in the nation of the Hyde Amendment, which cut off Medicaid program funding of safe abortions. As proud heirs to the fairer world she helped realize, it's the responsibility of Texans - male and female - to continue her tradition and move us forward. 1915Opponents of woman suffrage formed the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. The Mexican Army attacks and occupies San Antonio twice. Phyllis Schlafly forms the national group Stop ERA to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. Even in the frontier villages, married women earned money with dressmaking and millinery, not only in their homes, but also in shops and stores. Women's domestic union locals operate in Houston and Galveston. Later, as an administrator of the Center Point School, she develops a major physical plant, organizes a Parent-Teacher Association, and expands academic and vocational curricula. When it comes to defunding Planned Parenthood and attacking abortion rights, Texas pretty much wrote the playbook. She won the Texas Women’s Open in 1945, and was named AP Female Athlete of the Year (an award that she won six times). President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. El Paso Tejana laundry workers strike, protesting dismal wages and atrocious working conditions. Josefina María Niggli, San Antonio, publishes her first book, a collection of poetry entitled. The Grand Court, Order of Calanthe, a sororal organization for the richest black women in the U.S., is founded in Dallas. Rebecca Stuart Red founds the Stuart Female Seminary in Austin. Photo: Thom Ricks / Courtesy UTSA Special Collections. We have all gained wisdom and knowledge from the women who came before us and we hope to lend a hand to those who come after … Geraldine Ferraro is the vice presidential candidate on the Democratic Party ticket. “During a woman’s coverture or marriage, she disappeared to the law, leaving her husband in total control of her person and property,” Stuntz wrote in the April 2001 issue of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. No thank you, I am not interested in joining. More than half of Texas’ abortion clinics closed, mostly in rural areas of the state, forcing some women to travel to neighboring states or even Mexico to access the constitutionally protected procedure. Minnie Fisher Cunningham and Jane Y. McCallum form the Women's Committee for Educational Freedom to demand reinstatement for University of Texas President Homer P. Rainey, who was fired by the conservative board of regents. Lucy Patterson is first black woman elected to the Dallas City Council. Beatriz Escalona Pérez begins her theatrical career at the. The Attorney General of Texas tries to outlaw the Texas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on charges of barratry (stirring up lawsuits and quarrels), putting Christia Adair, Houston National Association for the Advancement of Colored People executive secretary, on the stand for seventeen days.