Suffrage Map, Austin Woman Suffrage Association

The suffrage map, showing the spread of women's suffrage to states around the country, was an icon of the suffrage movement. The Austin Woman Suffrage Association distributed this broadside sometime after 1913.

The double meaning of the question, "Won't You Help Us Make Texas White?" was almost certainly intentional. Opponents of women's suffrage had long contended that granting the vote to women would endanger white supremacy by allowing African-American women to vote. The suffragists fought back, arguing that the woman vote could, instead, be a way of guaranteeing white domination. The white vote would be doubled, while black voters could still be disenfranchised using methods such as literacy tests and the poll tax.

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Suffrage Map, Austin Woman Suffrage Association, Erminia Thompson Folsom Papers, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.