Texas Equal Suffrage Association

"[2] The El Paso Colored Woman's Club applied for TESA membership in 1918, but the issue was deflected and ended up going nowhere.

[6] TERA had auxiliaries in Beaumont, Belton, Dallas, Denison, Fort Worth, Granger, San Antonio, and Taylor.

Annette Finnigan and her sisters, Elizabeth and Katharine, organized the Equal Suffrage League of Houston in February 1903 after Carrie Chapman Catt gave a lecture in the city.

[9] During Finnigan’s presidency, the sisters attempted to organize women’s suffrage leagues in other cities but found little support.

[12] In February 1912, suffragists in San Antonio formed an Equal Franchise Society with Mary Eleanor Brackenridge, a prominent clubwoman and civic leader, as president.

[13] In April of that year, 100 Texans met in San Antonio to reactivate TWSA[14] with seven local chapters sending delegates.

[23] Cunningham led the TWSA in adopting the precinct-by-precinct organizing strategy developed by New York City suffragists.

[28] When Texas Governor James E. Ferguson, an opponent of women's suffrage, was indicted on various charges including embezzlement in 1917, TESA supported his impeachment.

[31] As the president of TESA, Cunningham was quick to point out that immigrants, especially German Americans, were allowed to vote, but Texas men at war were disenfranchised and their mothers and wives were not able to represent them at the polls through the ballot.

[33] In seventeen days, TESA and other suffrage organizations registered approximately 386,000 Texas women to vote.

[29] On October 10, 1919, TESA reorganized as the Texas League of Women Voters with Jessie Daniel Ames as the first president.