"Texas--Where men are men and women are governors"

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The old west had: "Where men are men and women are darned glad of it." If  
anyone has historical variants, please send them along.
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oman_are_governors/_ 
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“Texas—Where men are men and women are governors”
 
The old phrase “Texas, where men are men and--” goes back to the 1800s. In  
the play Texas Steer (1890), the lead character declared that he came  from a 
town in Texas “where men are men and the plumbing is improving.”  

An Old West saying was: “Where men are men and women are glad of it.”  

In the 1920s, “Ma” Ferguson became governor of Texas. A popular slogan  was: 
“Texas, where men are men and a women is governor” or “Texas, where men are  
men and women are governors.” Ann Richards would later refer to this when she 
 became governor. 

In 1993, Texas Tech won the NCAA women’s basketball  championship. A popular 
Lubbock bumper sticker read: “Texas Tech—Where men are  men and women are 
champions.” 


_Handbook  of Texas Online_ 
(http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/FF/ffe6.html)  
FERGUSON, MIRIAM AMANDA WALLACE (1875-1961). Miriam  Amanda (Ma) Ferguson, 
first woman governor of Texas, daughter of Joseph L. and  Eliza (Garrison) 
Wallace, was born in Bell County, Texas, on June 13, 1875. She  attended Salado 
College and Baylor Female College at Belton. In 1899, at the age  of twenty-four, 
she married James Edward Ferguson,qv also of Bell County. Mrs.  Ferguson 
served as the first lady of Texas during the gubernatorial terms of her  husband 
(1915-17), who was impeached during his second administration. When  James 
Ferguson failed to get his name on the ballot in 1924, Miriam entered the  race 
for the Texas governorship. Before announcing for office, she had devoted  her 
energies almost exclusively to her husband and two daughters. This fact, and  
the combination of her first and middle initials, led her supporters to call 
her  “Ma” Ferguson. She quickly assured Texans that if elected she would follow 
the  advice of her husband and that Texas thus would gain “two governors for 
the  price of one.” Her campaign sought vindication for the Ferguson name, 
promised  extensive cuts in state appropriations, condemned the Ku Klux Klan,qv 
and  opposed passing new liquor legislation. After trailing the Klan-supported  
prohibitionist candidate, Felix D. Robertson,qv in the July primary, she 
easily  defeated him in the August run-off to become the Democratic gubernatorial  
candidate. In November 1924 she handily defeated the Republican nominee, 
George  C. Butte,qv a former dean of the University of Texas law school. 
Inaugurated  fifteen days after Wyoming’s Nellie Ross, Miriam Ferguson became the 
second  woman governor in United States history.  

_Center for  American History (UT-Austin)_ 
(http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00127/cah-00127p9.html)  
A Guide to the Ann W. Richards Papers,  Part 09 
“Texas, Where Men are Men and Women are Governors” 

_Houston  Press_ 
(http://www.houstonpress.com/Issues/1997-10-02/news/feature.html)  
Article Published Oct 2, 1997 
Only a dozen or so people,  including a few men, had waded out into a 
thundering monsoon to hear author Ann  Crawford recount the history of women in Texas 
politics. 
(...) 
As he  did, Crawford’s history lesson meandered past the political activism 
of the  1960s to the post-Watergate era, which she described thusly: “Texas—
where men  are men and women are mayors.” 

_Handbook  of Texas Online_ 
(http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/LL/kzl1.html)  
_Texas Historical  Literature_ 
(http://www.rootsweb.com/~txlipsco/txhistory.html)  
Texas Historical Literature 
by Don B. Graham  
(...) 
The only play dealing with Texas themes that achieved popular  success was C. 
H.. Hoyt’s A Texas Steer (1890), which traced in a farcical  manner the 
colorful doings of a Texas rancher-congressman named Maverick Brander  from Red 
Dog, Texas, “where men are men and the plumbing is improving.” Hoyt’s  play 
enjoyed great popularity, was filmed three times including a 1927 version  
starring Will Rogers, and was still in print as late as 1939. 

_Cowboy Days_ (http://www.rootsweb.com/~kscomanc/bennett_es.html)  
The  Western Star, April 22, 1927. 
A Few Reminiscences of “Cowboy Days”  
Written by E. S. Bennett 
for the Fur-FishGame Magazine 
and used in  this paper by permission. 
(...) 
However, I have known many men who would  take exceptions and fight quicker 
at the word liar, than other allegations that  men in heated moments will pour 
out that sounds far more wicked and evil, but  somehow or other, out where men 
are men and women are governors as some humorous  fellow phrased it, men do 
not like the word “liar.” 

_Google  Books_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC10326858&id=76rYKQyWCv4C&q=texas+"where+men+are+men+and+women"&dq=texas+"where+men+are+men+and+women"
&ie=ISO-8859-1&pgis=1)  
Letters from a Hard-boiled Teacher to His Half-baked Son  
by George Frederick 
The Dalion Company 
1931 
Pg. 9: 
Soon  after the youth was decorated with the doctor’s hood, he was employed 
as a high  school teacher in Texas, “where men are men and women are glad of it.
”  

_Google  Books_ (http://
books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN1417992204&id=Wxd7J7jOy5EC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&ots=HLcMLLM7wF&dq=texas+"where+men+are+men+and+women"&ie=IS
O-8859-1&sig=_IG-h3IA8N3lEtuwfH6Tf54BYXg)  
I Give You Texas: 500 Jokes of the Lone Star State 
by  Boyce House 
San Antonio, TX: The Naylor Co. 
1943 
Kessinger  Publishing 
2004 (reprint) 
Pg. 4: 
Texas—where men are men and women  are glad of it. 

_Google  Books_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN074324348X&id=Wk_rW5ls5ZMC&pg=PA315&lpg=PA315&ots=EU6Ivsi5Ma&dq=texas+"where+men+are+men+and+women"&i
e=ISO-8859-1&sig=V_wBxFZRYfiy9yyMYCYOtFgP2ek)  
Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography 
by Steve Delsohn  and Mark Heisler 
New York: Simon and Schuster 
2006 
Pg. 315: In  celebration, the Lubbock Avalanche Journal put out its first 
special  edition since Pearl Harbor. As a local bumper sticker put it, TEXAS TECH—
WHERE  MEN ARE MEN AND WOMEN ARE CHAMPIONS. 
(Texas Tech won the 1993 NCAA  basketball championship with star Sheryl 
Swoopes—ed.) 

13 December 1924,  Danville (VA) Bee, “Vaudeville wit,” pg. 4, col. 7: 
“Texas—the state  where men are men and women are governors.” 

22 February 1925, Davenport  (Iowa) Democrat and Leader, pg. 6, col. 3: 
Down in Texas where men  are men and women are governors, Mrs. Miriam A. (Ma) 
Ferguson has bought a Moon  roadster. 

6 July 1926, Port Arthur (TX) News, pg. 7, col. 2:  
Avoiding all mention of Texas politics except when he referred to Texas as  “
the state where men are men and women are governors,” Lloyd Bloodworth of Fort 
 Worth, who said he was head of the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, addressed several  
thousand Sabine district klansmen at a joint celebration Monday night at Port 
 Neches park. 

10 October 1926, Galveston (TX) Daily News, pg. 20,  col. 6: 
Considerable attention was attracted by the Meeker car throughout  the East 
as it carried this sign on the rear: “From Texas, where men are men and  a 
woman is governor.” 

27 July 1930, Ogden (Utah)  Standard-Examiner, pg. 3, col. 3: 
He claims that a fellow in Teas,  where men are men and the women are glad of 
it, has climbed up to the top of a  cactus plant and is going to establish an 
endurance record by sitting there.  

7 March 1949, Lima (OH) , “Texas’ First Lady Dislikes Label  of ‘Ma’” by 
Inez Robb, pg. 6, col. 5: 
And Texas became known as the state  “where men are men and women governors.”
 

15 January 1957, Long Beach  (CA) Press-Telegram, pg. A9: 
Taffy Tuttle told Lee Segall, Dallas  producer, “Texas is a place where men 
are men and women are women, and it’s not  a bad setup.” 

25 July 1958, Austin (TX) American, pg. A13:  
“Down in the Wild West of Texas, where men are men and women are darned glad  
of it, we challenge the truth about the ruling,” he said. 

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