This collection consists of approximately 35,397 items in 54.2 linear feet. Correspondence, printed materials, legal and financial documents, genealogical information, periodicals, literary productions, diaries, press releases, posters and photographs document the woman’s suffrage movement, Jane McCallum’s personal life and career after suffrage, and Minnie Fisher Cunningham’s activities after suffrage.

There are 17.8 linear feet of materials relating to Texas Woman Suffrage Association, (TWSA), Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) and National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and covers the time span of 1900-1920. Jane McCallum notes on the inside cover of the TESA-Treasurer’s Record Book. “I did not join the Equal Suffrage Association until 1916. So much material [was] given to me for safe-keeping presumably because I lived in Austin, had lots of room in our home and was a natural researcher.” Because of this, the early attempts by Annette Finnigan and her sister to organize the women of Texas are included along with extensive documentation leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment. Contained within this material is a significant history of all aspects of the movement including their alignment with prohibition in an attempt to promote suffrage. The correspondence of McCallum and Cunningham, the president of TESA, with other suffrage organizations in the state, newspaper editors and legislators opens a window into the difficulties and opposition that they faced for many years. There is also correspondence and financial records documenting the grueling tours that took the field workers to most areas of the state. Materials from NAWSA include correspondence with Carrie Chapman Catt, and all of the supporting materials available to the Texas organizations. Oversize materials, including posters, ballots, broadsides, and periodicals are housed in the Archives Oversize Volumes Collection.

Jane McCallum’s personal and public life after suffrage makes up the second series. The 31.4 linear feet covers the time period of 1815-1967. She kept correspondence and materials relating to her husband, children and other family members. Her interests and activities, events in Austin, Texas, and the world are well documented, as are her tenure as Secretary of State, her work on the Joint Legislative Council, and the Better Schools Campaign. She was also active in national and state politics. There is material on the Moody, Hobby and Sterling governor’s races, along with her fight against Governors James and Miriam Ferguson. She was a member of Austin’s Planning Commission in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and involved in the politics of Austin. The institutions and organizations, both local and national, she was involved with are in this series. For her writings and books that she produced, there is a great deal of accumulated research and drafts of her finished works. She wrote about the suffrage movement and made her papers on suffrage available to A. Elizabeth Taylor and Mrs. Willie Bowles in the 1930s and 1940s for their research and writing. The papers on Minnie Fisher Cunningham are about 1.5 linear feet and cover a time period of 1918-1944. Her employment at A and M College Station and Washington from 1930-1943 is documented. Her interest in politics is represented with newspaper articles and information on various organizations. Her run for the Senate and Governor is documented here along with some materials with the McCallum series for her work on the Senate race. The last part of the collection is .5 linear feet of photographs. There are photographs of participants in the suffrage movement, Jane McCallum and her family, and Cunningham’s race for the Senate. There are also photographs relating to Elisabet Ney, group shots of Alabama Indians in Polk County in the 1930s, and views of a migratory camp in Robstown, Texas, in 1941.