Miriam a Ferguson - wikipedia Miriam a Ferguson Ma Ferguson 29th and 32nd Governor of Texas In office January 17, 1933 -- January 15, 1935 Lieutenant Edgar Witt Preceded by Ross Sterling Succeeded by James Allred In office January 20, 1925 -- January 18, 1927 Lieutenant Barry Miller Preceded by Pat Neff Succeeded by Dan Moody First Lady of Texas In role January 19, 1915 -- August 25, 1917 Governor James Ferguson Preceded by Alice Colquitt Succeeded by Willie Hobby Personal details Miriam Amanda Wallace Ferguson ( 1875 - 06 - 13 ) June 13, 1875 Bell County, Texas, U.S. June 25, 1961 ( 1961 - 06 - 25 ) ( aged 86 ) Austin, Texas, U.S. Political party Democratic Spouse ( s ) James Ferguson ( 1899 -- 1944 ) Education Salado College University of Mary Hardin - Baylor Miriam Amanda Wallace `` Ma '' Ferguson ( June 13, 1875 -- June 25, 1961 ) was the first female Governor of Texas, serving from 1925 to 1927 and 1933 to 1935. Contents 1 Early life 2 1924 election and first term 3 1932 election and second term 4 Views and policies 5 Post-governorship 6 See also 7 Notes 8 External links Early life Ferguson was born Miriam Amanda Wallace in Bell County, Texas. She studied at Salado College and Baylor Female College. When she was 24, she married James Edward Ferguson, who was then a lawyer. She got her nickname `` Ma '' partly from her initials `` M. A. '', and also because her husband was known as `` Pa '' Ferguson. They had two daughters, Oudia and Dorris. James Ferguson served as Governor of Texas from 1915 to 1917. However, he was impeached, convicted, and removed from office during his second term. As part of his conviction, he was not allowed to hold state office in Texas again. 1924 election and first term After her husband 's impeachment and conviction, Ma Ferguson sought the Democratic nomination for governor, and was elected to office. She told voters that she would follow the advice of her husband and Texas thus would get `` two governors for the price of one. '' A common campaign slogan was, `` Me for Ma, and I Ai n't Got a Durned Thing Against Pa. '' Against the odds, Ma Ferguson was elected governor, becoming the first female chief executive of Texas. Ferguson was elected with the help and support of her campaign manager, Homer T. Brannon of Fort Worth, Texas. After her victory in the Democratic primary, she defeated George C. Butte, a prominent lawyer and University of Texas dean who emerged as the strongest Republican gubernatorial nominee in Texas since Reconstruction in 1869. Ferguson received 422,563 votes ( 58.9 percent ) to Butte 's 294,920 ( 41.1 percent ). Butte had been supported by former Governor William P. Hobby, who had succeeded James Ferguson in 1917. Ma Ferguson was the second female state governor in the United States, and the first to be elected in a general election. Just two weeks before her inauguration, Nellie Tayloe Ross had been sworn in as governor of Wyoming to finish the unexpired term of her late husband. 1932 election and second term Ferguson ran again in 1932. She narrowly won the Democratic nomination over incumbent Ross S. Sterling. She then soundly defeated Republican Orville Bullington in the general election, 521,395 ( 61.6 percent ) to 322,589 ( 38.1 percent ). Bullington, who was a cousin of the first wife of future U.S. Senator John G. Tower, fared more strongly than most Texas Republican candidates did at that time but still polled behind Butte 's 1924 showing against Mrs. Ferguson. Ferguson 's second term as governor was less controversial than the first. According to rumor, state highway contracts only went to companies that advertised in the Fergusons ' newspaper, Ferguson Forum. A House committee investigated the charge but nothing ever came of it. In October 1933, she signed into law Texas House Bill 194, which was instrumental in establishing the University of Houston as a four - year institution. Views and policies `` Fergusonism, '' as the Fergusons ' brand of populism was called, is still a controversial subject in Texas. As governor, she tackled some of the tougher issues of the day. Though a teetotaler like her husband, she aligned herself with the `` wets '' in the battle over prohibition and took a firm stand against the Ku Klux Klan. She has been described as a fiscal conservative, but also pushed for a state sales tax and corporate income tax. Miriam Ferguson is often credited with a quote allegedly spoken in reference to bilingualism in Texas schools : `` If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas. '' However, variations of this going back to 1881 were often used to ridicule the claimed backwardness of various unnamed Christians, which supports the argument that the attribution to Ferguson is false. Mrs. Ferguson 's infamously generous granting of pardons was her way of relieving the overcrowded conditions in Texas prisons. During two non-consecutive terms in office, Mrs. Ferguson issued almost 4,000 pardons, many of them to free those convicted of violating prohibition laws. Though never proven, rumors persisted that pardons were available in exchange for cash payments to the governor 's husband. In 1936, voters passed an amendment to the state constitution stripping the governor of the power to issue pardons and granting that power to a politically independent Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles ( see Capital punishment in Texas ). Post-governorship Except for an unsuccessful bid to replace Governor W. Lee `` Pappy '' O'Daniel in 1940, the Fergusons remained retired from political life after 1935. In that campaign, she trailed O'Daniel's principal rival, Texas Railroad Commissioner Ernest O. Thompson of Amarillo. Ferguson Cut Off, between Hwy. 290 East and the old Manor Road, in Austin, Texas, is named after Ma Ferguson. James Ferguson died of a stroke in 1944. Miriam Ferguson died from congestive heart failure in 1961 at the age of eighty - six. See also List of female state governors in the United States Notes Jump up ^ `` Portraits of Texas Governors : The Politics of Personality ''. Texas State Library. Retrieved April 13, 2007. Jump up ^ Coppedge, Clay ( February 25, 2007 ). `` A city grows up : Temple matures into a regional medical and agricultural hub ''. Temple Daily Telegram. Retrieved April 13, 2007. ^ Jump up to : John D. Huddleston. `` Ferguson, Miriam Amanda Wallace ''. Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. ^ Jump up to : Coppedge, Clay ( March 25, 2007 ). `` ' Ma ' elected governor of Texas ''. Temple Daily Telegram. Jump up ^ Ferguson and Ross actually both won election on the same day, but Wyoming inaugurated its governor before Texas. Jump up ^ `` Discover UH 's Heritage & History ''. UH Alumni Organization. Archived from the original on May 14, 2008. Retrieved May 29, 2008. Jump up ^ Cárdenas, José A. ( 1994 ). All Pianos Have Keys and Other Stories. Intercultural Development Research Association. ISBN 1 - 878550 - 53 - 5. Jump up ^ Zimmer, Benjamin ( April 29, 2006 ). `` Ma Ferguson, the apocryphal know - nothing ''. Language Log. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved September 25, 2007. Jump up ^ Texas State Libraries and Archives Commission : `` Pardons and Paroles '' retrieved October 20, 2011. Jump up ^ `` ferguson cutoff map, austin, tx -- Google Search ''. google.com. Retrieved September 14, 2015. External links Wikiquote has quotations related to : Miriam A. Ferguson Miriam Ferguson from the Handbook of Texas Online Miriam A. Ferguson at Find a Grave Honorary titles Preceded by Alice Colquitt First Lady of Texas 1915 -- 1917 Succeeded by Willie Hobby Party political offices Preceded by Pat Neff Democratic nominee for Governor of Texas 1924 Succeeded by Dan Moody Preceded by Ross Sterling Democratic nominee for Governor of Texas 1932 Succeeded by James Allred Political offices Preceded by Pat Neff Governor of Texas 1925 -- 1927 Succeeded by Dan Moody Preceded by Ross Sterling Governor of Texas 1933 -- 1935 Succeeded by James Allred Governors and Lieutenant Governors of Texas Governors J.P. Henderson Wood Bell J.W. Henderson Pease Runnels Houston Clark Lubbock Murrah Hamilton Throckmorton Pease Davis Coke Hubbard Roberts Ireland Ross Hogg Culberson Sayers Lanham Campbell Colquitt J. Ferguson Hobby Neff M. Ferguson Moody Sterling M. Ferguson Allred O'Daniel Stevenson Jester Shivers Daniel Connally Smith Briscoe Clements White Clements Richards Bush Perry Abbott Lieutenant Governors Horton Greer Henderson Dickson Runnels Lubbock Clark Crockett Stockdale Jones J. W. Flanagan Campbell D. W. Flanagan Fountain Pickett Hubbard Sayers Storey Martin Gibbs Wheeler Pendleton Crane Jester Browning Neal A. B. Davidson Mayes Hobby Sr. Johnson L. Davidson T. W. Davidson Miller Witt Woodul Stevenson J. L. Smith Shivers Ramsey P. Smith Barnes Hobby Jr. Bullock Perry Ratliff Dewhurst Patrick First Ladies and Gentlemen of Texas Republic of Texas Hannah Este Burnet ( 1836 -- 1836 ) Margaret Lea Houston ( 1841 -- 1844 ) Mary Smith Jones ( 1844 -- 1846 ) State of Texas Frances Cox Henderson ( 1846 -- 1847 ) Martha Evans Gindratt Wood ( 1847 -- 1849 ) Laura A. Hooker Henderson ( 1853 -- 1853 ) Lucadia Christiana Niles Pease ( 1853 -- 1857 ) Margaret Lea Houston ( 1859 -- 1861 ) Martha Melissa Evans Clark ( 1861 -- 1861 ) Adele Baron Lubbock ( 1861 -- 1863 ) Sue Ellen Taylor Murrah ( 1863 -- 1865 ) Mary Jane Bowen Hamilton ( 1865 -- 1866 ) Ann Rattan Throckmorton ( 1866 -- 1867 ) Lucadia Christiana Niles Pease ( 1867 -- 1869 ) Anne Elizabeth Britton Davis ( 1870 -- 1874 ) Mary Evans Horne Coke ( 1874 -- 1876 ) Janie Roberts Hubbard ( 1876 -- 1879 ) Frances Wickliffe Edwards Roberts ( 1879 -- 1883 ) Anna Maria Penn Ireland ( 1883 -- 1887 ) Elizabeth Dorothy Tinsley Ross ( 1887 -- 1891 ) Sarah Ann Stinson Hogg ( 1891 -- 1895 ) Sallie Harrison Culberson ( 1895 -- 1899 ) Orline Walton Sayers ( 1899 -- 1903 ) Sarah Beona Meng Lanham ( 1903 -- 1907 ) Fannie Bruner Campbell ( 1907 -- 1911 ) Alice Murrell Colquitt ( 1911 -- 1915 ) Miriam A. Ferguson ( 1915 -- 1917 ) Willie Cooper Hobby ( 1917 -- 1921 ) Myrtle Mainer Neff ( 1921 -- 1925 ) James E. Ferguson ( 1925 -- 1927 ) Mildred Paxton Moody ( 1927 -- 1931 ) Maud Gage Sterling ( 1931 -- 1933 ) James E. Ferguson ( 1933 -- 1935 ) Joe Betsy Miller Allred ( 1935 -- 1939 ) Merle Estella Butcher O'Daniel ( 1939 -- 1941 ) Fay Wright Stevenson ( 1941 -- 1942 ) Mable Buchanan Jester ( 1947 -- 1949 ) Marialice Shary Shivers ( 1949 -- 1957 ) Jean Houston Baldwin Daniel ( 1957 -- 1963 ) Nellie Connally ( 1963 -- 1969 ) Ima Mae Smith ( 1969 -- 1973 ) Betty Jane Slaughter Briscoe ( 1973 -- 1979 ) Rita Crocker Clements ( 1979 -- 1983 ) Linda Gale White ( 1983 -- 1987 ) Rita Crocker Clements ( 1987 -- 1991 ) Laura Bush ( 1995 -- 2000 ) Anita Thigpen Perry ( 2000 -- 14 ) Cecilia Phalen Abbott ( 2015 -- ) VIAF : 6618544 LCCN : n94011080 SUDOC : 079107222 IATH : w68w3nbr Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Miriam_A._Ferguson&oldid=815565600 '' Categories : 1875 births 1961 deaths American political bosses from Texas Baptists from the United States Burials at Texas State Cemetery Democratic Party state governors of the United States First Ladies and Gentlemen of Texas Governors of Texas People from Bell County, Texas Texas Democrats University of Mary Hardin -- Baylor alumni Women in Texas politics Women state governors of the United States Hidden categories : All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from December 2017 Articles with permanently dead external links Use mdy dates from April 2017 All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from August 2011 Find a Grave template with ID same as Wikidata Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC - ID identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikiquote Deutsch Français Latina Norsk Português Русский Simple English Svenska Edit links This page was last edited on 15 December 2017, at 16 : 41. 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Question: who was the first woman elected governor of texas
Answer: Miriam Amanda Wallace "Ma" Ferguson