Rachel Michelle Gunter, Ph.D.

Rachel Michelle Gunter is a professor of History at a community college in North Texas. She earned a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Texas A&M University in 2017. She studies the woman suffrage movement in Texas and the United States from 1917 to 1923 focusing on how the successes and failures of the movement affected the voting rights of other groups including resident noncitizen voters, Mexican and German immigrants, servicemen, WWI veterans, Mexican Americans, and Black Americans. As part of this research she also looks into changes to the voting system including the beginning or expansion of absentee balloting in much of the United States and how many southern states altered their poll taxes during wartime so as to not disfranchise soldiers or veterans. She further researches the suffragists' and later the League of Women Voters' efforts to gain married women's independent citizenship, instead of the government deriving their citizenship status from their husband's.

Publications

You didn’t always have to be a citizen to vote in America

Rachel Michelle Gunter

Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/29/you-didnt-always-have-be-citizen-vote-america/, 2021

Immigrants Declarants and Loyal American Women: How Suffragists Helped Redefine the Rights of Citizens

Rachel Michelle Gunter

Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-gilded-age-and-progressive-era/article/immigrant-declarants-and-loyal-american-women-how-suffragists-helped-redefine-the-rights-of-citizens/B478BD887C5C43F664544DC81E374360/share/e45d224fc8f3e6f7007ae970ba81ea057b5dafe2, 2020, pp. 1-16

“They Think I Have Forgotten All About the Past”: Suffragists’ Struggle for Acceptance in Politics in Arizona and Texas

Rachel Michelle Gunter

Journal of Arizona History, vol. 61(2), https://muse.jhu.edu/article/757935, 2020, pp. 231-240

“‘Without Us, It is Ferguson with a Plurality,’ Woman Suffrage and Anti-Ferguson Politics.”

Rachel Michelle Gunter

Jessica Brannon-Wranosky, Impeached: The Removal of Texas Governor James E. Ferguson, A Centennial Examination, Texas A&M University Press, 2017

Publications

You didn’t always have to be a citizen to vote in America

Rachel Michelle Gunter

Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/29/you-didnt-always-have-be-citizen-vote-america/, 2021

Immigrants Declarants and Loyal American Women: How Suffragists Helped Redefine the Rights of Citizens

Rachel Michelle Gunter

Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-gilded-age-and-progressive-era/article/immigrant-declarants-and-loyal-american-women-how-suffragists-helped-redefine-the-rights-of-citizens/B478BD887C5C43F664544DC81E374360/share/e45d224fc8f3e6f7007ae970ba81ea057b5dafe2, 2020, pp. 1-16

“They Think I Have Forgotten All About the Past”: Suffragists’ Struggle for Acceptance in Politics in Arizona and Texas

Rachel Michelle Gunter

Journal of Arizona History, vol. 61(2), https://muse.jhu.edu/article/757935, 2020, pp. 231-240

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Projects

Co-Writer, Consultant & Interviewee for “Citizens at Last"

Dr. Gunter is a co-writer, consultant & interviewee for “Citizens at Last,” a documentary history of the Texas Suffrage Movement released March 2021.

Executive Advisory Committee Member for the Handbook of Texas Women

Dr. Gunter serves on the Executive Advisory Board of the Handbook of Texas History, a project of the Texas State Historical Association.

Texas Coordinator for the Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States

Dr. Gunter is the Texas Coordinator for the Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States, a crowd sourcing digital humanities project thru the Women and Social Movements in the United States website.

Editorial Board of the East Texas Historical Journal

Dr. Gunter serves on the Editorial Board of the East Texas Historical Journal.

Votes for Women Board Game with Fort Circle Games

Dr. Gunter authored a suffrage overview for the boardgames Votes for Women.

Pages

Book Reviews

Encyclopedia Entries

Historians at the Movies

On Twitter at #HATM

Media & Interviews

Public History

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