Knox-Goodrich used her wealth and her social position to push for equal employment, school suffrage, and voting rights.

[1] William J. Knox was born October 20, 1820, near Hopkinsville, Christian County, Kentucky, and married Sarah Browning on April 1, 1846.

[13] Knox-Goodrich had wealth and social position, and used them both in state campaigns for equal employment, school suffrage, protests of taxation without representation, and voting rights.

[14][15] Clara Shortridge Foltz, the first female lawyer on the West Coast, said of her, "Mrs. Knox is a widow of commanding personal appearance, an abundance of bank stock, and a wealth of .

[17][14] On the Fourth of July in 1876, Knox, "determined to make a manifestation", filled her carriage with prominent friends carrying signs that read "We are the disfranchised Class", "We are Taxed without being Represented", and "We are governed without our Consent".

[18] In 1874, Knox-Goodrich spearheaded a bill making women eligible to run for educational office, such as school boards, even though they could not vote.

She, and her co-lobbyists, traveled to Sacramento and stayed there for a month, supporting the passage of the bill in the State Assembly.

Your petitioner respectfully represents that she is a real estate owner, paying heavy taxes annually for public improvements, and of the support of a government in which she has no representation....The petition failed.

[21][22] Both committees were formed to direct and support the campaign to amend the California state constitution, giving women the vote.

In 1889, Knox-Goodrich and Ellen Clark Sargent paid for Laura de Force Gordon, a journalist and leader of the California Women's Suffrage Society, to give a series of lectures in the Washington Territory.

She died in 1903 and was buried between her two husbands at Oak Hill CemeteryIn 2019, the building was purchased by Urban Catalyst as part of a development plan for the Fountain Alley area.