Annie White Baxter

Annie White Baxter (March 2, 1864 – June 28, 1944) was a Missouri politician. At her election as county clerk of Jasper County, Missouri, in 1890, she became the first elected female office-holder in the state, as well as the first female county clerk in the United States.

Life and career

Annie White was born the second of three children of cabinetmaker John B. and Jennie Black White in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was of English and German descent. When she was two, she moved with her family to Newark, Ohio; she moved with them again to Carthage, Missouri in 1876 when her father began operation of a furniture factory in the town. and took a job assisting Jasper County Clerk George Blakeney; she was subsequently appointed deputy clerk to John N. Wilson.

Due largely to her reputation as a supporter of well-run county government, the county Democratic Party nominated Baxter as its candidate for county clerk in 1890, but there was some uncertainty as to whether or not she was eligible to run, as women at the time could not vote. Nevertheless, she remained on the ballot, defeating Republican Julius Fischer by more than four hundred votes, he appears not to have seriously contested the election, expecting an easy victory. But Baxter had support among the miners of the county, who went door-to-door singing "Little Annie Rooney", the name being their nickname for her, while canvassing on her behalf. Fischer challenged the result, but was denied by the circuit court judge of Greene County;

Baxter returned to politics when fellow Carthage Democrat Cornelius Roach, a former business partner of her husband's, became Missouri Secretary of State in 1908; he appointed her state registrar of lands, a role which she discharged until 1916. She became financial secretary of the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1922; in 1936 she was a delegate to the Democratic Party's state convention. She also served, for a time, as the secretary to James Thomas Quarles, founding dean of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Missouri.

Baxter died of pneumonia in Jefferson City, and is buried in River View Cemetery. A street in Joplin bears her name, as does the Columbia, Missouri chapter of the American Association of University Women. In 2012 Missouri Life magazine named her one of the Top Ten Women Who Changed Missouri. Also in 2012 she was inducted into the Hall of Carthage Heroes. A marker on the grounds of the Jasper County Courthouse details her accomplishments.