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Antisuffrage activist dies
On this day in 1928, antisuffragist Pauline Wells died of heart disease
in Marlin. Wells, the daughter of Emma Henrietta Butler and Joseph
Kleiber, was born in Brownsville in 1863. At the age of seventeen she
married James B. Wells, who became a powerful South Texas political
boss. Supported by her husband, she began working against the woman
suffrage movement as early as 1912. Three years later she argued that
suffrage was "identified with feminism, sex antagonism, socialism,
anarchy and Mormonism." In 1916 she became the first president of the
Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and in 1919 headed a drive
by Texas "antis" to hold off ratification of a state constitutional
amendment giving women the right to vote in the general election; their
victory proved short-lived, however, as Texans soon ratified the federal
Nineteenth Amendment.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- WELLS, PAULINE JOSEFINE KLEIBER
- WELLS, JAMES BABBAGE, JR.
- WOMAN SUFFRAGE
- TEXAS ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE
- PROGRESSIVE ERA
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Texan's sacrifice in Vietnam earns Medal of Honor (1968)
- "La Musa Texana" dies in Laredo (1910)
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