Women's suffrage in California
Historian Ronald Schaffer has noted the women's suffrage movement in California "is a story of slow building and initial defeat.
In 1868, orators Laura de Force Gordon and Anna Dickinson gave a series of lectures advocating for women's suffrage.
"[5] In 1870, Susan B. Anthony wrote to Elizabeth T. Schenck calling on her to gather support amongst suffragists in the pacific states to endorse a bill which would have enfranchised women in Washington, D.C.[6] Anthony noted in her letter that Schenck's suffrage organization had made a financial commitment to the National Woman Suffrage Association.
[11] Ida Harper published a letter in the Los Angeles Herald advocating for the passage of Amendment 6 where she noted the suffrage movement would welcome the support of both political parties.
[14])Some suffragists believed the power of the liquor lobby was the reason for the defeat as it was assumed women voters would vote for temperance.
[4] Mary Sperry, who was the president of the California Equal Suffrage Association, argued that politics has a direct impact on women's lives and they therefore deserve the vote.
Sargent argued, "We must step out into the open and make ourselves so well acquainted with government in all its bearings that we will be considered authority upon the points we shall have investigated and thus command the respect of the most intelligent people, men and women.
Maria Guadalupe Evangelina Lopez, president of the College Equal Suffrage League, served as a Spanish translator for the movement.
According to historian Delilah Beasley, she belonged to the Political Equality Club as well as the San Jose Suffrage Amendment League and recruited African American voters to the polls.
[29] In the 1911 campaign, California suffragists produced an important leaflet titled, "Extracts from the Speech of Father Gleason" which aimed to appeal to the Catholic voter.
California suffragists produced many short suffrage plays such as Mary Lambert's The Winning of Senator Jones and Selina Solomons's The Girl from Colorado.
[8]After proposition 4 was passed in 1911, many California suffragists remained active in the fight for women's suffrage at the national level including Mary Austin and Maud Younger.
[31] In 1912 California suffragist Alice Park took over NAWSA's congressional committee charged with working towards the passage of a federal amendment granting women suffrage.
[32] Several joined the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage including Lillian Harris Coffin and actress Mabel Taliaferro who also went by the name Mrs. Frederick Thompson.
[8] Historian Delilah L. Beasley documented the numerous contributions of African American women to the suffrage cause in her 1919 self-published book The Negro Trailblazers of California.
[35] Suffragist Selina Solomons wrote a firsthand account of the movement shortly after the passage of proposition 4 titled, How We Won the Vote in California: A True Story of the Campaign of 1911.
