It’s only fitting that the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment comes right in the middle of what is shaping up to be a particularly contentious election year. After all, women fought for centuries for the right to exercise their voices in moments that, like this one, determine the future our of country.

We've done a great deal promoting that right in the past 100 years (and, it should be noted, significantly less time for most minority groups). Women have turned out to vote in slightly higher numbers than the men for every election since 1984. And this year alone, more female candidates filed to compete for House and Senate seats at the federal and state levels than ever before—a truly historic achievement befitting a centennial of women voting.

But there’s still work to be done, especially in the Lone Star State, where, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, female political participation is ranked one of the lowest in the country (we’re an abysmal No. 45 out of 50 states, in case you’re wondering).

As we celebrate the 19th Amendment’s certification 100 years ago, on August 26, 1920, and prepare to exercise the civic duty it guaranteed us all later this fall, Houstonia's taking a look back at the journey of those brave women who helped make the Bayou City one of the major ignition points in Texas’s fight for equal suffrage.