Miriam A. Ferguson

Miriam Amanda Ferguson ( born June 13, 1875 Bell County, Texas, † June 25, 1961 in Austin, Texas) was an American politician and 1925-1935 twice Governor of the State of Texas.

Early years

Miriam Ferguson was born as Miriam Amanda Wallace. She attended Salado College and Baylor Female College in Belton. In 1899 she married James E. Ferguson, who should be governor of Texas 1915-1917 and resigned in the summer of 1917 just before a safe impeachment embezzlement and fraud of this office. His wife was by then politically hardly have appeared. In 1924, she then ran for the Democratic party instead of her husband for the office of Governor of Texas.

Governor of Texas

After the election victory Ferguson stepped up her new post on 20 January 1925. She was the first woman in the history of the State of Texas who has held this office, and after Nellie Tayloe Ross, the second governor in the history of the United States. This was just two weeks previously imported into the Office of the Governor of Wyoming. As Governor Miriam Ferguson fought the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition. However, they had to respect the corresponding prohibition on the federal level. A mask prohibition against the Klan was repealed by the courts of the state again. Their term of office was marked by a high number of pardons. The average was about 100 per month. In this context, and also in the award of contracts bribery rumors began to circulate, however, could not be proved. However, some members of the Highway Commission had to resign because of accepting bribes. In the background, her husband continued to play an important role in their government.

One goal of Miriam Ferguson was the whitewashing of her husband from the 1917 case against him. In this they remained unsuccessful. In 1926, she was not re-elected and therefore different on January 18, 1927 from the Office of the Governor of. After her husband in 1930 missed his party's nomination again presented himself for the primaries Miriam Ferguson in his place. But They lost to Ross S. Sterling. Two years later she managed it but then to win the nomination for a second term. After she had decided the actual elections for themselves, they could officiate between 17 January 1933 and 15 January 1935, once as governor. These years were overshadowed by the global economic crisis, which could be gradually overcome with the help of the New Deal policies of the federal government. Your second term was domestically quieter than the first. She continued her pardon policy proceeds and rumors about irregularities also came on again, but that did not trigger a major wave of protests as yet during their first term of office, anymore.

Further CV

In the years 1936 and 1938, Ferguson did not run for the gubernatorial elections. In 1940 she applied then again unsuccessful to this office. After the death of her husband in 1944, she retired from politics. She died in 1961 in Austin and was buried at her husband's side. The couple had two children.