Alabama Politics And The Women In It

Many people have bemoaned the lack of women holding elected office in Alabama in recent years, particularly in the legislature. There aren't many women in our legislature, especially among Republicans. Several prominent women hold statewide office in this state. Governor Kay Ivey, PSC Chair Twinkle Cavanaugh, Justices Kelli Wise, and Sarah Stewart of the Supreme Court are just a few. The lack of female political participants has been mocked by some of the more progressive states.

But history will show that Alabama was a long way ahead of other ostensibly progressive states in electing women to statewide positions. In fact, for many decades in the 1960s and 1970s, women held the majority of the positions of Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and State Auditor. My first political observations in Alabama were of the women who alternated between the positions of State Treasurer and Secretary of State every four years. These constitutional positions were regarded as being held by women.

Governor Chauncey Sparks appointed Sybil Pool as secretary of state in 1944. Pool became the first woman in Alabama history to be elected to a statewide office two years later, in

1946, by a landslide. Pool won that election in 1946 by winning 63 of the 67

counties. Four years later, she won the most votes ever cast in a state election when she ran for state treasurer. She won the first of her four elections to the Public Service Commission in 1954.

Before her first statewide victory, Pool had represented her native Marengo County in the legislature for two terms. In addition to being the first woman elected statewide, she was only

the second woman elected to the Alabama Legislature. Her political career spanned 16 years on the State Public Service Commission, four years as State Treasurer, and eight years as Secretary of State. In Alabama, Sibyl Pool opened the political door for women to enter because she was decades ahead of her time.

Before being chosen as Secretary of State in 1954, Mary Texas Hurt Garner of Scottsboro practiced law and served as an Assistant Attorney General. Later, in 1958, she was appointed

State Auditor.  In 1962, she was chosen as the state treasurer.

In the Wallace Administration, Annie Laura Gunter held several important cabinet positions.

After that, Gunter was elected State Treasurer of Alabama in 1978 and held that

significant state position for eight years.

 

Governor Kay Ivey, Chief Judge Sarah Stewart, PSC President Twinkle Cavanaugh, and Chief Judge Kelli Wise are pictured clockwise from the top left. 

It is difficult to believe that women were first granted the right to vote in the United States just a little over 100 years ago. In 1920, the Constitution's 19th Amendment giving

women the right to vote in all elections was finally ratified.

Many people have bemoaned the lack of women holding elected office in Alabama in recent years,

particularly in the legislature. 

There aren't many women in the legislature, especially among Republicans. Several prominent women hold statewide office in the state. Governor Kay Ivey, PSC Chair Twinkle Cavanaugh, Justices Kelli Wise, and Sarah Stewart of the Supreme Court are just a few. The

lack of female political participants has been mocked by some of the more

progressive states. 

But history will show that Alabama was a long way ahead of other ostensibly progressive states in electing women to statewide positions. In fact, for many decades in the 1960s and 1970s, women held the majority of the positions of Secretary of State, State

Treasurer, and State Auditor. For political observations in Alabama of the

women who alternated between the positions of State Treasurer and Secretary of

State every four years. These constitutional positions were regarded as being

held by women.

Governor Chauncey Sparks appointed Sybil Pool as secretary of state in 1944. Pool became the first woman in Alabama history to be elected to a statewide office two years later, in

1946, by a landslide.  Pool won that election in 1946 by winning 63 of the 67 counties. Four years later, she won the most votes ever cast in a state election when she ran for state treasurer. She won the first of her four elections to the Public Service Commission in 1954.