Margaret Eva Goldsmith was born March 12, 1880 in Grimes County, Texas. She was the oldest of ten children born to John Caswell Goldsmith, a Civil War calvaryman from Alabama, and Mary Elizabeth Tuffly, born in Houston in 1853 to German-Swiss parents who ran a bakery in Hempstead. Eva grew up on a farm near Howth Station, north of Hempstead, where her grandfather Goldsmith was station master. She moved to Houston about 1900, where she worked in a textile mill and a laundry, and listed her occupation as seamstress. Her family moved to Houston soon after, and they lived in Brunner, a neighborhood in the West End, just east of Camp Logan (now Memorial Park), what is now Rice Military. She was encouraged to join the garment workers union and eventually held several offices, including president. She was recruited in 1912 to run the switchboard at City Hall by Mayor Rice. In 1913 she was asked to speak before the Texas Legislature in support of a (successful) bill that would limit the workweek of women and children to 54 hours a week, and no more than 9 hours per day, noted in newspapers around the state. Later she worked for a minimum wage law. After testifying in Austin, she realized the importance women’s suffrage, that women likely would be more concerned with the welfare of women than the businessmen she encountered. She worked tirelessly for this cause until the passage of the right to vote in primaries in Texas in 1918 and the confirmation of the 19th amendment in 1920. Her parents having died, she moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1925 she married police officer Arnold "Mike" Barrett. He died in 1930 from a stroke while on patrol. She moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where she died in 1954.
For a fuller biography, see the article on the Texas State Historical Association website: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fgo90
Below are some interesting articles about her efforts to help others.
 |
| August 20, 1909:
Member of the Labor Day celebration committee
|
 |
January 20, 1910
Elected Vice President of the Houston Labor Council
|
 |
| January 20, 1912 Offered job by Mayor Rice running the telephone exchange in City Hall. "A great tribute to a deserving lady." |
 |
May 9, 1912
Proposed successful resolutions dealing with union-made garments at the annual Texas Federation of Labor conference in Palestine.
|
 |
| September 1, 1912 Worked on committees for the Knights of Labor celebration for Labor Day |
October 15, 1912
Part of the welcoming committee and seated on the stage when John Mitchell (American Federation of Labor) spoke at an address sponsored by the Federation of Labor Council at the City Auditorium. (Whole article, and detail)
_____________________________________________________
Eva Goldsmith spoke before the Texas Legislature in favor of limiting the hours that women (and children) shall work to no more than 54 hours per week, and no more than 9 hours per day. She received much favorable publicity (see below) and the bill was passed.
 |
| Austin Statesman 1/25/1913 "Every time they raised the same howl that you cotton mill gentlemen are raising, that they were being driven out of business, but they have been growing richer all the while." |
Front page of the Houston Post 1/26/1913 (above, whole article; below, detail)
 |
| Argued for better working conditions for Women before the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence Houston Post 1/26/1913 |
 |
Houston Post 3/30/1913
Appointed by Governor Colquitt as delegate to the Southern Conference on Woman and Child Labor in Meridian MS.
|
 |
| Houston Post 4/1/1913 Spoke at the organizational meeting of the Houston Consumers' League describing her work before the Texas Legislature partly by which was passed the 9-hour law for women and children in factories, mills, and stores. |
 |
| Houston Post 4/4/1913 Sent a letter to Houston legislators condemning senators who amended the 54-hour bill to exempt mill employees and to allow laundries power to work employees 11 hours a day; also commending"those senators and representatives who fought to valiantly for the bill in its original form, showing themselves to be more deeply interested in the preservation of womanhood and the lives of children than in depravity and hoarded wealth....Until recently I took no interest in woman's suffrage and gave no time to studying what it meant. When I got to Austin, a mission that was by no means voluntary on my part, I resolved to join the Woman's Political Union of Houston immediately upon my return home." |
 |
Houston Post 6/1/1913
That men's stupidity and demonstrated inability to cope intelligently with the labor and social problems of today has forced the working women, practically against their inclinations and wills, to join the ranks of the woman's suffrage movement and will undoubtedly result in a legislative amendment within the next few years giving the women of Texas power to vote, was the gist of a talk Saturday afternoon by Miss Eva Goldsmith, president of the Texas State Garment Workers Union, at the regular Saturday afternoon tea of the Women's Political Union of Houston.
"I became a woman's suffrage apostle last February. It came upon me all at once, suddenly but forcibly and thoroughly, while I was called to Austin by the legislative board of the State labor organization to work for the nine-hour law. It was then that I had my eyes opened to the kind of talk and arguments that opponents of the nine-hour law were able to stuff the legislators with and the feebleness of those supposed to fight for the bill to answer arguments that were so criminally foolish that they were enough to make anarchists of one to listen to."
Miss Goldsmith then recounted how she busied herself and succeeded in getting a woman appointed on the legislative board.
Probably one of the most interesting portions of her talk unfolded the shrewd and able way in which she succeeded in forcing the issue of women's suffrage before the State convention of the Federation of Labor and succeeded in having it made the preference legislative measure of the federation.
"Until recently," she said, "I took no interest in women's suffrage and gave no time to studying what it meant. When I got to Austin, a mission that was by no means voluntary on my part, I resolved to join the Women's Political Union of Houston immediately upon my return home."
Miss Goldsmith stated that the working women of Texas are becoming a political force purely and absolutely against their original wills and intentions.
"When I came to Houston," she said, I had no idea of joining a labor union, and when I found it to be necessary I joined because I thought it was necessary.
"It was a long time before the garment workers of Houston took any part in the Labor Council. We dreaded having anything to do with the council and only attended because we were threatened with having our charter taken from us. The charter meant ice water, cool work rooms and other things that we did not care to leave.
"Before we bean to send delegates to the council meetings were conducted along the lines known among the men as 'knock-down-and-drag-out.' They are now conducted as orderly as a woman's tea. We did not want to go, but when we got there we made a difference in things."
The tea was in charge of Mrs. M. G. Howe and Miss Mary Roper, and was attended by a number of women interested in "votes for women." The union now numbers more than 300 enrolled members and claims the sympathies of a much larger number who, it is believed, will join as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
 |
| Houston Post 7/15/1913 Spoke with other suffragists at Hawthorne School about her conversion to the cause. |
Houston Post 8/17/1913
Eva Goldsmith: front row, second from left
 |
| Houston Post 10/5/1913 Ad which uses the article "The Shop Girls and the Human Vultures" in the Houston Labor Journal by Eva Goldsmith "Every mother and sister in Houston should remember the girl behind the counter and go shopping before 6 p.m." |
 |
Houston Post 1/30/1914
Named to the Board for the new Delinquent Girls
Home for which she had campaigned. |
 |
| Houston Post 4/16/1914 Spoke at the meeting of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen in support of women's suffrage |
 |
| Houston Post 5/17/1914 Spoke at the Houston chapter of the National Women's Political Union, as the president of the Houston Garment Workers Union and member of the legislative committee of the State Labor Council. |
 |
| Houston Post 5/19/1914 Spoke before County Commissioners Court to urge immediate action on the construction of the first Harris county training school for girls building. |
 |
| Houston Post 6/7/1914 Delegate to the annual convention of the Texas State Federation of Labor. Sixty local delegates traveled by train to Fort Worth where their 3 sleeping cars were coupled to the special train heading to the convention. |
 |
| El Paso Herald 6/10/1914 Lead author of report investigating the women's minimum wage law, which recommended an investigation of the living conditions and to fix the minimum scale to fit conditions, presented at the convention of the Texas State Federation of Labor. The report was forwarded to the legislative committee for the purpose of drafting a law to cover these recommendations. |
 |
Houston Post 2/8/1915
Addressed a meeting in the Texas House of Representatives in the interest of the 54-hour and the minimum wage bills.
|
 |
| Houston Post 3/21/1915 Board member for the Harris County School for Girls, progress report |
 |
| Houston Post 4/21/1915 Singled out for "a high compliment" for her abilities by Senator Carlos Bee |
 |
| Houston Post 5/2/1915 Spoke at the Texas Woman Suffrage association of her experience in the women's suffrage campaign. |
 |
Houston Post 4/26/1916
Resolution by the Texas State Federation of Labor
to place a woman organizer in the field to organize unorganized women wage earners. |
 |
| Houston Post 6/14/1916 Street meeting of the Women's Political Union |
 |
| Houston Post 7/5/1916 Spoke at meeting of Women's Political Union. Note another speaker, Julia Ideson, for whom one of the Houston Downtown Library buildings is named. |
 |
Houston Post 2/6/1917
Served as pallbearer for union sister along with other women
from the Garment Workers Union. I wonder if this is one of the women she testified that was worked to death in the mills. |
 |
| Houston Post 3/28/1917 Spoke at the Woman's Equal Suffrage association meeting on the "Industrial Need of Woman Suffrage." |
 |
| Houston Post 3/31/1917 Elected treasurer of the newly organized Houston Equal Suffrage Society. |
 |
| Houston Post 7/24/1917 Chairman for the Suffrage Club for Self-Supporting Women, sending a telegram to thank Representative Rankin for her successful efforts to restore the eight-hour day to the women workers of the bureau of printing and engraving in Washington DC. |
 |
| Houston Post 7/27/1917 Spoke at the meeting of the National League of Women's Service at the close of the two-week registering campaign to aid the war effort. |
Houston Post 7/28/1917 (full article and detail)
Spoke to encourage women to co-operate, organize,
and promote patriotic efforts to do whatever they
can to help, such as canning food that would otherwise be wasted.
 |
| Houston Post 8/10/1917 Speaking for the industrial women at Prohibition Rally |
 |
| Houston Post 8/30/1917 Interviewed about the Camp Logan Riot continued below: |
 |
Houston Post 9/2/1917
Seated front row, third from left
|
 |
| Houston Post 5/28/1918 Member of women's registration committee to support both Governor Hobby and registering women to vote in the 1918 primary elections. |
 |
| Houston Post 6/9/1918 Member of (Governor) Hobby Club which took over the Rice Annex Bar, cleaning it out for use as a meeting place.(The women vowed to support Hobby when he promised to support women's suffrage.) |
 |
| Houston Post 6/29/1918 Spoke at another Hobby Club meeting. |
 |
| Houston Post 7/25/1918 Political ad for supporter of the 8-hour law. |
 |
| Houston Post 7/29/1918 Elected as delegate to the county convention. (first time women could vote in primary) |
 |
| Austin American 8/18/1918 "Harris County Equal Suffrage Association endorses your candidacy and recommends you to the women voters of the state for your splendid legislative record, especially Married Woman's Property Rights, Compulsory Education, Child Labor, 54-Hour Law, Girls' Training School Law, and your constant stand for Suffrage and Prohibition." |
 |
| Houston Post 8/24/1918 Political ad that also urges women to vote |
 |
| Houston Post 12/5/1918 Was nominated by delegation of women to be appointed as a sheriff's deputy. Sheriff Binford was taking it under consideration. Continued below: |
 |
| Houston Post 1/21/1919 Information committee representing the Harris County Equal Suffrage Association and the Woman's Labor Circle. |
 |
| Houston Post 8/2/1919 In charge of the information booth for the Harris County Equal Suffrage Association, distributing suffrage literature regarding the coming constitutional amendment election. |
