biography
| name: |
Ferguson, Ma
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| |
née Miriam Amanda Wallace
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| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (1875–1961)
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| biography:
| US governor, born in Bell Co, Texas, USA, the wife of Governor James Ferguson. Although she attended college, she became a housewife and entered politics in order to clear her husband's name. After his impeachment (1917) on charges of mishandling funds and interfering in the university, he was forbidden ever to hold any state office, so she ran (1924) and was elected, first in 1925–7, then later to a second term (1933–5). In many ways she was merely a ‘front’ for her husband (who had an office beside hers in the state house), promoting his essentially populist conservative agenda including pardoning large numbers of prisoners, but opposing the Ku Klux Klan. Her last term was marked by charges of dishonest practice in the Highway Commission, and she retired to Austin and remained out of public life. |
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