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Miriam A

Miriam Amanda Wallace "Ma" Ferguson (13 June 1875-25 June 1961) was the Democratic Governor of Texas from 20 January 1925 to 18 January 1927 (succeeding Pat Morris Neff and preceding Dan Moody) and from 17 January 1933 to 15 January 1935 (succeeding Ross S. Sterling and preceding James V. Allred).

Biography[]

Miriam Amanda Wallace was born in Belton, Bell County, Texas in 1875, and she married James E. Ferguson in 1899. She was First Lady of Texas from 1915 to 1917, when her husband was impeached; in 1924, her husband had her run for Governor, with Miriam saying that she would consult her husband for advice. Wallace promised that Texan voters would get "two for the price of one" if they elected her, and she was elected in spite of facing a strong Republican opposition as Democratic voters resentful of Ferguson's corruption temporarily crossed party lines. Ferguson won with 58.9% of the vote, becoming the second female state governor in the United States after Nellie Tayloe Ross, and the first to be elected in a general election. Ferguson opposed the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition, although she and her husband were teetotalers. However, her husband's arch-rival Dan Moody defeated her for re-election in 1926 with support from suffragists. Ferguson was re-elected in 1932 with 61.6% of the vote, and, during her two terms in office, she issued 4,000 pardons, many of them suspected of being paid favors. She pursued policies of fiscal conservatism during her time in office, although she pushed for a state income and corporate tax. She died in Austin in 1961.

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