Hortense Sparks Ward

Hortense Sparks Ward (July 21, 1872 – December 5, 1944) was a pioneering Texas lawyer and women's rights activist.

Biography Born Hortense Sparks in Matagorda County, Texas, Ward grew up in Edna, Texas and attended Nazareth Academy, a convent school. Ward taught school in Edna starting in 1890 and married her first husband Albert Malsch a year later. The family moved to Houston in 1903, where Ward worked as a court reporter. Hortense and Albert divorced in 1906 and she married her second husband, attorney William Henry Ward two years later. She wrote pamphlets and newspaper articles and personally exhorted elected officials to vote for bills promoting women's legal rights. Ward led a successful 1918 campaign to allow women the right to vote in Texas primary elections and, on June 27 of that year, she became the first woman in Harris County, Texas to register to vote.

Ward died in Houston on December 5, 1944.