Background
Lurleen Burns Wallace was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the daughter of Henry Morgan Burns, a lumber grader and later a shipyard worker, and Estelle Burroughs.
(24" x 18" folding road map published by the state. Revers...)
24" x 18" folding road map published by the state. Reverse side contains pictures and information about points of interest.
https://www.amazon.com/Official-Alabama-1967-68-George-Wallace/dp/B002Q1QVUY?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B002Q1QVUY
Lurleen Burns Wallace was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the daughter of Henry Morgan Burns, a lumber grader and later a shipyard worker, and Estelle Burroughs.
She attended local schools, graduating early from high school, and received a diploma from the Tuscaloosa Business College in 1942.
In 1942 she met George Corley Wallace in the local Kress variety store, where she worked as a clerk. After his discharge from the Army Air Forces in 1945, the Wallaces settled in Clayton, Ala. George Wallace was elected to the state legislature in 1946, and thus began his political career. Lurleen Wallace, the model of the busy, middle-class housewife, was active in the Methodist church, where she taught Sunday school. Wallace enjoyed needlework, water-skiing, horseback riding, and flying light airplanes, although she never received a pilot's license. Politics, though, were left to her husband. This would begin to change in 1958, when Wallace's husband first ran for governor of Alabama. Then she made a few campaign appearances with him. Although he lost the primary election, his ambition to become governor remained keen. In 1962, with his attractive though shy wife at his side, he emerged as a hard-line segregationist candidate, and a successful one. He became the foremost example of a states'-rights governor. As Alabama's first lady, Lurleen Wallace presided graciously over the usual round of receptions and teas. Lurleen Wallace was thrust onto the center stage of politics because of a provision in Alabama's constitution forbidding a governor from succeeding himself in office. Failing in his attempt to change the state constitution on this point and not wanting to relinquish his authority, he asked his wife to consider running for governor in 1966. After giving the question much thought, Wallace decided to do so, even though her husband had reportedly cooled on the matter. On Febuary 24, 1966, Lurleen Wallace announced her candidacy for governor. There never was any doubt that she was running as her husband's surrogate. He declared that if she were elected, "I shall be by her side and shall make the policies and decisions affecting the next administration. " She added, "My election would enable my husband to carry on his programs for the people of Alabama. " Moreover, she made it clear that she would assist him in forwarding his growing presidential ambitions. In their numerous joint appearances, she dealt with state and local issues and he chiefly with national issues. She usually spoke first and then introduced her husband by saying, "If you elect me, he will be my number-one adviser. " She showed sparkle and ability in speaking, and she increasingly spoke longer during her appearances and contributed to the writing of her speeches. Her chief campaign issue, as was her husband's, was opposition to outside interference in state affairs. Wallace had to face some election factors that her husband had not encountered in 1962. Not only had a substantial number of blacks become registered voters since then, but also the Republicans had become a force with which to reckon. Moreover, she was running against nine other Democrats in the 1966 gubernatorial primary election. Wallace swept all before her, however, winning the primary election with 54. 1 percent of the votes cast. She won the general election against a segregationist Republican congressman and an independent candidate, polling 63. 4 percent of the vote. Thus, she became only the third woman--and the first since the 1930's - to be elected a governor in the United States. Wallace's tenure of office was memorable, if short. She was inaugurated on Jan. 16, 1967. Wallace reiterated her vow to carry on her husband's programs, adding that Alabama's "principles of self-government will not be suppressed by force - force from China, from Russia, from Cuba, or from Washington, D. C. " When in March 1967 a federal court ordered the desegregation of the state's public schools, she asked the legislature for complete control over the schools. In May she cut off state funds to all-black Tuskegee Institute. Wallace also followed her husband's drives to improve state highways, expand trade-school training, combat tuberculosis, and encourage Alabama's industrial development. Her own contribution was to secure funding to improve mental hospitals. She was a working governor, however much her husband set the policies of her administration. Wallace had had an operation for cancer before she ran for governor. In July 1967 she had to undergo surgery for a new malignancy. From then on, she was able to devote little time to her official duties, although she did find time to make out-of-state appearances with her husband in the following November and January in connection with his independent candidacy for the presidency. Her health deteriorated rapidly, though, until her death in Montgomery. During her time on the public scene, Wallace made a favorable impression on many Americans.
She was Alabama's first female Governor and was the only female governor to hold the position until Kay Ivey became the second woman to succeed to the office in 2017. She is also (as of 2017) the only female governor in U. S. history to have died in office. In 1973, she was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame. Indeed, she placed sixth on a list of the nation's most-admired women in a December 1966 Gallup poll.
(24" x 18" folding road map published by the state. Revers...)
Her verve, diligence, and wit gave her considerable credibility, and her early death made her seem a tragic figure. During the resurgence of the women's movement in America, she was a symbol, despite her segregationism and her husband's domination, of womanly success for many.
She married George Corley Wallace on May 21, 1943; they had four children.
