This study concentrates on the social status of women in one southern town during the late nineteenth century and the Progressive Era. Historians are aware that events associated with this time period brought many opportunities to women nationally, but little research has been done to reveal the impact of these opportunities at the local level. Nationally, women gained access to higher education, agitated for suffrage, adopted new clothing styles, and began community reforms, but to what extent did those changes come home to a locality such as Texarkana, Texas? Texarkana was chosen as the focus of this study because it was in its first half-century of existence during these forty years, a new town occupying a position on the rapidly expanding railroad bringing settlers into Texas. Moreover, as a new town, Texarkana did not have the backlog of community mores common to longer-established towns — mores that might skew the measurement of changing status.
Status is defined in this study as “women's standing within the community.” It is further defined in terms of ascribed status and achieved status. In the search for ways to measure change in women's status, several aspects presented themselves: access to education and employment; availability of leisure time; utilization of organized health care; and participation in women's clubs. As is often the case in women's history, measuring change in status is difficult because of the lack of records on women and their activities. However, a number of primary sources exist for Texarkana women from which conclusions can be drawn: Bowie County Deed Records, Marriage Records, Probate Records, and School Records; employment records of the Texarkana school system; newspapers dating back to the earliest part of the Progressive Era; interviews with women who lived during the period; census data on the female population of Texarkana in three U. S. censuses — 1880, 1900, and 1920; health care records from the local hospital; and club records.
This study revealed that Texarkana women did not enjoy social changes immediately after the town's founding in 1874, but had to wait approximately two decades before change came locally. Another result of this study was the realization that Texarkana's women never felt that they were behind the times; rather, they had the status they had grown up to expect. Texarkana women enjoyed having college degrees, ample leisure time, membership in women's clubs, and participation in social reform, and the majority of the town's women experienced noticeable change in status in the featured categories of this study during the Progressive Era.
Place Name coordinates. (May be approximate.)
Place Name coordinates. (May be approximate.)
