I picked up this volume of biographical sketches, Women in Texas by Anne Fears Crawford and Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, when I was vacationing in Texas last summer. When I bought the book, I was primarily intrigued by the chapter about Annie Webb Blanton, which the authors described as the foremost woman educator in Texas.

This amazing teacher, president of the Texas State Teachers’ Association, was encouraged and financed by the State Suffrage Association in her 1918 bid to become the first woman elected to the state superintendent’s office. Texans gathered in droves across the Lone Star State to hear this remarkable teacher speak, and to witness the novelty of a woman campaigning in Texas’s male-dominated political arena. The campaign was a dirty one, with opponents charging that Blanton was divorced (yikes!) and that she was an atheist (yeesh!).

You don’t have to go to Texas to find this book, which reveals the engrossing results of that 1918 election. You can purchase Women in Texas on amazon.