DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, straight from the record as Dallas County knows it. Now, you'd think that once Texas women won the right to vote in 1920 — right alongside every other American woman when the 19th Amendment was ratified — the rest of citizenship would follow close behind. The ballot box, sure.
But the jury box? That door stayed shut for another thirty-four years. See, it became clear pretty quickly after 1920 that the right of suffrage and the right of jury service were not going to be handed out together.
So the efforts started — quietly at first, then with more urgency as the 1930s and 1940s rolled through. And here's the part that ought to make you smile and wince at the same time: local newspapers started drawing attention to the whole tangled mess by reporting on women who got called to jury duty by mistake. By mistake.
As if the courthouse itself kept forgetting its own rules. The Dallas Morning News went a step further and pointed out something that was, frankly, hard to argue with — that the system would allow a woman to sit as a district judge, in a robe, behind the bench, ruling on cases of law — and then turn around and tell that very same woman she had no right to sit on a jury. Let that one settle for a moment.
Finally, on November 2, 1954, voters approved the amendment to the Texas Constitution requiring that women serve on grand and petit juries. It passed. After decades of pushing, it passed.
But Dallas County being Dallas County, the official wheels turned at their own pace. Women weren't formally added to the Dallas County jury selection lists until August of 1955. And yet — and here's where it gets interesting — women who continued to be called to duty in that gap, still technically called by mistake, now had the legal right to serve for the first time.
That old courthouse error suddenly carried real weight. In November of 1954, a woman named Adelyne Dransfield found herself the sole female member of the jury on which she was serving. And her fellow jurors elected her foreman — making her one of the first female jury foremen in Dallas County history.
One woman. One jury. Elected to lead it.
The marker calls these first occasions key steps in the ongoing struggle for gender equality and the achievement of full citizenship rights. And that's exactly what they were. Those first women who served didn't slip quietly into the box and hope nobody noticed.
They asserted their right to do the job with legitimacy and confidence. Thirty-four years between the ballot and the jury box. Sometimes the most important battles are the ones fought over the rights everybody already assumes were settled.
What the marker says
Although the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote in 1920, women were not permitted to serve on juries in Texas until 1954. Efforts to add women to jury lists began soon after passage of the 19th amendment , when it became clear that the right of jury service would not be granted to women along with the right of suffrage. These efforts hastened during the 1930s and 1940s. During this time, local newspapers drew attention to the issue by reporting on women who were called to jury duty by mistake, and the Dallas Morning News pointed out the absurdity of a system that would allow female district judges but denied those same women the right to sit on a jury. The amendment to the Texas Constitution requiring that women serve on grand and petit juries was finally approved by voters on November 2, 1954. Although women were not officially added to the Dallas County jury selection lists until August of 1955, women who continued to be called to duty "by mistake" had the right to serve for the first time. In November 1954, Adelyne Dransfield, the sole female member of the jury on which she was serving, was elected as one of the first female jury "foremen" in Dallas County. The first occcasions for women to serve on juries in Dallas County were key steps in the ongoing struggle for gender equality and the achievement of full citizineship rights for women in Dallas and throughout the nation. The first women to serve on juries in Dallas County asserted their right to complete this very important job of citizenship with legitimacy and confidence. (2008)