I understand we have a national, and international audience, so my apologies if this caters to our home state of Texas. While researching Texas suffrage for an interview tomorrow, I felt the need to share this information with all our audience. We hear about the big names in suffrage history, such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul, but we never hear about our state suffragists. If you are not from Texas, I hope this post inspires you to research your state or country's suffrage fight and continue to vote in all elections.

Texas Suffrage Timeline - there is much more, but these are the highlights.

In early American history, women had virtually no rights. They had to depend on a man, usually a father, husband or brother, for representation. Women were not allowed to enter in a contract, own property, vote, serve on a jury or hold public office. The Second Great Awakening brought on a new thought process for women outside the home. For the first time, women founded schools, orphanages, charities, among other things.

1830s - the religious revival swept America from New England to the wilds of Texas.

1868 - the first opportunity to grant women's suffrage failed with the adoption of the state's Reconstruction Constitution in 1868, a document required of all Confederate states.

1893 - The Texas Equal Suffrage Association is formed, but disbanded in 1896 due to dissention.

1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson decision upholds Texas Jim Crow laws, including restrictions on black voting rights.

In 1887, 1908 and 1911, Texas prohibitionists tried and failed by narrow margins to get a statewide prohibition paw passed. It was then that male prohibitionist realized that Texas women were overwhelmingly in favor of prohibition. For the first time, significant numbers of men began to work for women's suffrage. One in particular was Senator Morris Sheppard, a staunch supporter of Prohibition and women's suffrage.

1914 - Minnie Fisher Cunningham led the women's suffrage movement in Texas from behind closed doors to mainstream Texas politics. Taking lessons from their sisters in Kansas, California and Colorado, suffragists lobbied Progressive legislators until they offered a bill to enfranchise women. They spoke into bullhorns from Model T's and organized public parades, undaunted by taunts or threats to southern womanhood.

1914 - The state legislature defeated a suffrage bill. A formidable two-thirds legislative majority posed too great a barrier to passage, however, and the bill was defeated.

1917 - The campaign to impeach corrupt Governor James E. Ferguson promised a new era of reform in Texas. Cunningham argued that women would "clean house" by voting in primary elections. Savvy suffragists used back-door lobbying to keep the old guard out of office by brokering support for reform candidate William P. Hobby, "The Man Whom Good Women Want." This strategy produced a startling incremental victory: women's right to vote in the state primaries in 1918.

1919 - A contentious referendum campaign for full suffrage in 1919 came up short. The measure combined the right to vote for women with suffrage for "aliens." Opponents coyly used the "3 fears" to defeat the measure: fear of black and alien voters, fear of Prohibition and fear of Progressivism. But all was not lost. Texas lawmakers had endured over five years of "heavy artillery down in Texas" by Cunningham and the Texas Equal Suffrage Association. These activists defied the conventional wisdom that "Southern women do not want to vote," and spurred Texas to join the border state of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee, the only states in all of Dixie to ratify the 19th Amendment.

June 4, 1919 - U.S. Senate finally passes the "Susan B. Anthony" amendment. If three-fourths of the state ratified the amendment, women would have the right to vote nationwide.

August 26, 1920 - The 19th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, women finally win the right to vote!

Next Thursday marks the 90th Anniversary of women's right to vote. Make sure you do not forget what suffragists fought for and make sure your voice in heard at the polls.

*information gathered from The Women's Museum exhibits, Texas State Library & Archive Commission and Women of the West Museum.