On July 3, 1955, Maria Guadalupe Urzúa Flores won the Jalisco Electoral District X seat in the first federal election in Mexico in which women were allowed to vote and stand.
She was elected to the XLIII Legislature with three other female deputies: Albertina Ezeta in the State of Mexico; Margarita García Flores in Nuevo León, and Marcelina Galindo Arce in Chiapas.
Born in 1912 in Jocotepec, Urzúa Flores grew up in a family of liberal professionals. Her mother had died in childbirth, and she was raised by an aunt who owned a pharmacy in San Martín Hidalgo, 70 kilometers west of Jocotepec.
According to research undertaken by the Guadalajara-based Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social Occidente (CIESAS), Urzúa Flores became politicized after witnessing first hand the struggles of agrarian workers in her home town. She headed women’s campesino committees affiliated to the Partido de la Revolución Mexicana, which later became the Partido Institutional Revolucionario (PRI).
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