The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988 Page: 557

Book Reviews
NORMAN D. BROWN, Editor
Citizens at Last: The Woman Suffrage Movement in Texas. Essay by A. Eliza-
beth Taylor. Foreword by Anne Firor Scott. Consulting Editors:
Ruthe Winegarten and Judith N. McArthur. (Austin: Ellen C.
Temple, 1987. Pp. xiv+ 242. Foreword, introduction, illustrations,
photographs, tables, notes, bibliography. $19.95, paper.)
Citizens at Last examines a significant but often neglected facet of the
Texas past. The struggle for woman suffrage is not only a vital part of
the history of Texas women, it is also an important episode in state
politics.
The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 includes two essays by
A. Elizabeth Taylor, the leading authority on the woman suffrage
movement in the South. Taylor was one of a few scholars who wrote
about women's experiences long before women's history gained recog-
nition as a legitimate field. In the first essay, she explains how she be-
came interested in woman suffrage and recalls the difficulties of pursu-
ing the topic in an era when most historians dismissed research on
women as "peripheral" to traditional history. The second essay, "The
Woman Suffrage Movement in Texas," originally published in 1951, is
a solid account of Texas women's efforts to win the right to vote.
In part 2 consulting editors Ruthe Winegarten and Judith N. McAr-
thur have assembled a fine collection of photographs and documents,
including excerpts from newspapers, legislative documents, personal
correspondence, speeches, and organizational records. The documents
present the major arguments both sides used in the public debate
on woman suffrage and also provide a behind-the-scenes look at the
strategies and tactics suffragists employed. It is evident that leaders of
the suffrage movement were shrewd politicians. They were involved
in issues ranging from prohibition to the impeachment of Governor
James E. Ferguson, and they conducted a carefully orchestrated cam-
paign for the ballot.