Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of MARIN B. FENWICK, 1860-1928
By Debbie Mauldin Cottrell
This entry has been republished with special permission from the Handbook of Texas Women, a project of the Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. <https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ffeen>. Accessed October 30, 2018.
FENWICK, MARIN B. (ca. 1860–1928). Marin B. Fenwick, writer, suffragist, and civic leader, was born in Highland County, Ohio, around 1860, the daughter of James and Marinda (Sloan) Fenwick. She earned a degree at Rockford Female Seminary (later Rockford College) in Illinois, where she was a classmate of Jane Addams and Julia Lathrop. She lived in the Midwest for a while and then moved to San Antonio in 1891. The next year she took a job with the San Antonio Express, thus beginning a newspaper career that continued until shortly before her death. Fenwick served as editor of the society page until 1911, when she began a column entitled "Facts and Fancies." In addition to this column she began a second one, "Just Among Ourselves," for the San Antonio Evening News in 1918. She also edited and published Who's Who Among the Women of San Antonio and Southwest Texas in 1917. Fenwick was active in women's club work in San Antonio and held positions of leadership in the Woman's Club, Wednesday Luncheon Club, and Young Women's Christian Association. Her other memberships included the San Antonio History Club. She was an ardent advocate of voting rights for women and was involved in local and state suffrage organizations. Through this effort she became a close friend of San Antonio suffragist Mary Eleanor Brackenridge. In 1905 Fenwick sailed around the world with Eleanor and her brother George Brackenridge and met woman suffrage leaders in other countries along the way. Highlights from this trip were chronicled in the San Antonio Express. In 1924 Governor Pat Neff and San Antonio leaders honored Fenwick for her lengthy service to the local press. Marin Fenwick, a Presbyterian, died after a brief illness on June 27, 1928, in San Antonio and was buried in Mission Burial Park.
sources:
San Antonio Express, June 28, 1928.
Who's Who among the Women of San Antonio and Southwest Texas (San Antonio: Fenwick, 1917).