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Hortense Sparks Ward became the first woman in Harris County history to register to vote.
About this event
#OnThisDay in 1918, Hortense Sparks Ward became the first woman in Harris County history to register to vote. Born in Matagorda County in 1872, she married Houston lawyer William Henry Ward in 1908. In 1910 she became one of the first women admitted to the Texas state bar (after Edith Locke in 1902 and Alice Tiernan in 1909).
Ward worked tirelessly in support of women’s rights and penned moving newspaper essays and pamphlets for that cause. She was instrumental in the passage of the Married Woman’s Property Law of 1913 by the Texas Legislature, and she campaigned with suffragist Minnie Fisher Cunningham for enfranchisement.
Texas women won an important victory in 1918 when the legislature permitted them to vote in primary elections. In a short span of less than three weeks, 386,000 women across the state registered to vote, and Hortense Ward led the way.
Learn more:
-- TSHA: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fwa83
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Historical Dates
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