By the time she was born in 1882, the family fortunes had been dissipated by the Civil War and Reconstruction, forcing her mother to sell vegetables to make ends meet.

She holds the distinction of being the first female student of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston to earn a Graduate of Pharmacy degree.

Cunningham saw the connection between poverty and nutrition, and worked for government legislation to require nutrient enrichment of flour and bread.

Cunningham's 1944 Texas gubernatorial candidacy against incumbent Coke Stevenson garnered her second place in a field of nine candidates.

To meet the expenses of running a county campaign office for John F. Kennedy's presidential race, she sold used clothing.

[14] Under Cunningham's guidance, GESA held a public department store event on May 2, 1914, that included speeches by Chicago attorney and lobbyist Annette Funk.

[28] Cunningham moved the TESA headquarters to Austin in 1917 when the Texas State Legislature began considering a primary suffrage bill that ultimately failed to pass.

At the same time, there was a growing possibility of impeachment of Governor Ferguson over numerous practices that included appropriations and appointments at the University of Texas.

Cunningham made an alliance with university professor Mary Gearing and Austin suffrage people to form the Women's Campaign for Good Government (WCGG).

The legislature called a special investigative session, and the WCGG took to the streets and handed out a flyer listing what it believed were impeachable acts of Ferguson.

[30] After the American entry into World War I, Cunningham involved TESA in patriotic work, such as the campaign for Liberty bonds.

The Woman's Anti-Vice Committee was aimed at providing wholesome alternatives to bars and a deterrent to prostitution, as was the Texas Social Hygiene Association.

[33] The group persuaded university professor Annie Webb Blanton to run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

[36] She and NAWSA lobbyist Maud Wood Park, who would become the first president of the League of Women Voters,[37] initiated a campaign for constituents to flood the offices of their representatives with telegrams in favor of passage.

[44] Cunningham teamed with Jessie Jack Hooper, first vice president of Wisconsin Women's Suffrage Association,[45] on a national tour for ratification.

[50] Maud Wood Park was elected in 1920 as president of the Women's Joint Congressional Committee (WJCC) lobby organization.

Park brought Cunningham back into service to work with Iowa Congressman Horace Mann Towner and Texas Senator Morris Sheppard to pass the 1921 Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act.

[52] The duo worked together with Ohio Congressman John L. Cable for passage of the 1922 Married Women's Independent Citizenship Act, and for its 1930 and 1931 amending.

Watching the platform committee undermine her presentations became a learning curve for Cunningham, who was beginning to believe women needed more involvement in partisan politics.

Governor Miriam Ferguson vetoed the CPPL's recommendation of taking the prisoners off the plantations and housing them in a new facility to be built in Austin.

[72] Cunningham worked in tandem with the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs (TFWC) to advocate bakers enrich flour with basic vitamin and mineral content.

And in 1941 when Lyndon Johnson ran as a candidate for the United States Senate, the WCEP had an agreement with him that in exchange for his making freight-rate reform a top priority, they would get out the vote for him.

The WCEP also advocated a fully funded teacher retirement system and pensions for needy elderly persons who did not qualify for Social Security.

[78][79] Cunningham, Bob Eckhardt, John Henry Faulk and other Texas liberals of the time had tried in vain to convince J. Frank Dobie to run against Stevenson.

[77][84] At Cunningham's urging, Sarah T. Hughes ran for Congress against Joseph Franklin Wilson, losing in a post-primary runoff.

[86] Cunningham formed the Women's Committee for Educational Freedom (WCEF) in 1945 as a call to arms over practices of the university regents.

[88] A farm labor organization named the Texas Social and Legislative Conference (TSLC) was primarily the concept of Cunningham and Alexander Caswell Ellis.

An internal contest for the party played out, with Shivers intent on delivering the state of Texas to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952.

[93] Cunningham had penned her "Countryside and Town" column in the State Observer since 1944, and was convinced the liberals needed media focus on their platforms and activities.

The TDSW ran Cunningham in the 1960 Texas primary in a Favorite Daughter campaign, sidestepping any support for either Shivers or Johnson.