Minnie Fisher Cunningham

Politics in Texas has always been a rough-and-tumble affair. For a long time, women were legally prohibited from voting, yet maintained an important presence in the political arena. Minnie Fisher Cunningham was one of those responsible for opening politics to males and females alike.

Minnie Fisher White was born on March 19, 1882, on a large farm near New Waverly, Texas, to Horatio White and Sallie Comer White. Her father, a former member of the Texas House of Representatives, introduced her to politics at a young age, and, as they say, "it took." Educated at home, Minnie earned a teaching certificate as a teenager and taught school for a year before enrolling in the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, emerging three years later with a pharmacy degree. In 1902 she married B. J. Cunningham, who himself had political interests. After helping her husband be elected Walker County attorney, Minnie's passion for politics was reignited.

In 1910 the Cunninghams were living in Galveston, and Minnie was serving as president of the Galveston Equal Suffrage Association. She traveled extensively to promote the cause of women's suffrage. In 1915 she was elected president of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association-later renamed the Texas Equal Suffrage Association-and served in that capacity for an unprecedented four consecutive terms. Under her leadership, suffragettes won many battles that they had been fighting for years.

In 1918, largely due to Minnie Fisher Cunningham and her constant lobbying, legislators approved a bill allowing women to vote in state primary elections in Texas. Cunningham then focused on the Nineteenth Amendment, helping to found the League of Women Voters and working feverishly to convince state officials in Texas and elsewhere to ratify the proposed constitutional modification. That campaign was successful as well, and in 1920 women gained full political rights across the country.

In 1928 Cunningham became the first woman to run for the United States Senate from Texas, challenging incumbent and notorious Ku Klux Klan supporter Earle B. Mayfield for the seat. She finished a distant fifth in a field of six in the Democratic primary, however, and devoted herself to helping farmers for the next fifteen years, both with the Texas A&M Extension Service and with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in Washington. In 1943 she returned to Texas and re-involved herself in state politics.

A strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt-and a friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt-Cunningham fought determinedly against the increasingly conservative bent of the Texas Democratic Party. She ran as an avowed liberal against Coke Stevenson for governor in the Democratic Primary of 1944 and finished second in a field of nine. She backed Homer Rainey against the conservative establishment in 1946, called on New Waverly to integrate its public schools following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and campaigned for Ralph Yarborough in 1954 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Minnie Fisher Cunningham died on December 9, 1964, and was buried in New Waverly. To get there, take I-45 south from Huntsville to New Waverly. Go east on Hwy. 150 about two miles; Hardy Cemetery is just past the Sacred Gardens on the south side.

For more information about Minnie Fisher Cunningham, see the New Handbook of Texas. To learn more about East Texas history, contact the East Texas Historical Association at Stephen F. Austin State University or visit the ETHA web site at http://leonardo.sfasu.edu/etha/.