The thread of women’s rights history in nineteenth and early twentieth-century California began at the Convention of 1849 when there was a short debate among delegates regarding whether inheritance laws should follow Mexican precedent or shift to American practices. Under Mexican law, a woman retained ownership of property acquired before marriage and gained community property acquired during the marriage. In contrast, American law at the time made men the sole owner of women’s property acquired before marriage. The lack of community property statutes also meant that a woman had to assert claims to property in probate court if she were widowed and there was no will. The Convention of 1849 opted to retain the Mexican system, perhaps out of deference to existing practices and to attract women to emigrate to California (Schuele 170). However, over the next several decades, subsequent laws and court cases undermined this constitutional provision. They brought California inheritance laws in line with standard practices in the rest of the US. Efforts to improve women’s property rights were already underway nationally, and in 1872, a new civil code in California allowed women to have control of property acquired before marriage.
The national struggle for women’s suffrage began with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and did not succeed nationally until the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified in 1920. The struggle for suffrage also occurred within each state. The territory of Wisconsin was the first to give women the right to vote in 1869. The California Woman Suffrage Society was founded a year later. Petitions by suffragists to Sacramento legislators received press attention. Laura de Force Gordon’s testimony in 1870 before a senate committee was reported favorably with the words, “None could deny the eloquence of this lady…” (Shuele 179). However, proposals for suffrage were defeated. One small success occurred in 1874, with women gaining the right to be elected to school boards and to become superintendents. By the late 1870s, women’s rights groups were not as well-organized, and as a consequence, there was no strong effort to lobby for suffrage at the Convention of 1878. The issue was briefly debated and rejected.
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Clara Shortridge Foltz. (public domain; Scewing via Wikimedia )
The Convention of 1879 improved the status of professional women. Supported by the California Bar Association, women’s rights advocates Laura de Force Gordon and Clara Shortridge Foltz persuaded the legislature in 1878 to allow them to join the Bar. Then, at the Convention, they successfully secured and broadened this change to include a provision stating that no person is disqualified from “any lawful business, vocation, or profession on account of sex” (Schuele 192).
As California grew in population and developed economically and socially, women’s clubs formed in many parts of the state. Many of these clubs went beyond social roles to support civic and political reforms, including helping to alleviate poverty, prohibit alcohol, and promote women’s suffrage. Women’s clubs successfully pressured the Republican Party to support suffrage in 1894. During a time of intense party competition, Republicans viewed suffrage as a way to attract more support. In 1896, the majority Republican legislature placed a referendum on the ballot for the enfranchisement of women. Suffrage groups campaigned hard throughout California for its passage, but the measure failed. Voters, especially in San Francisco, were afraid that the enfranchisement of women would mean greater success by the temperance movement to limit or ban liquor.
Disappointed and demoralized, the women’s clubs retreated from the suffrage fight for several years. However, California was rapidly changing, and by 1905, the conjunction of a rejuvenated suffrage movement with the rapid growth of the Progressive wing of the Republican party led to success. Suffragists, such as Lillian Harris Coffin of the California Club, adopted an explicitly party-oriented strategy of working to secure the endorsement of suffrage by all political parties, which, with the exception of the Republican Party, they were able to achieve in 1906.
In 1908, delegates to the Republican Party state convention again rejected women’s suffrage and did not adopt the Lincoln-Roosevelt League progressive reforms. The suffrage and progressive movements now had a common cause to work together; both advocated for “good government” and new policies to address the ills of modern-day society, and both opposed the machine politics that foiled reform efforts and disenfranchised women. When progressive Republican Hiram Johnson won the Republican nomination for governor, he promised that suffrage would be one of the reforms brought before the California people by referendum.
Suffragists did not limit the campaign for suffrage to their middle-class supporters. They contacted unions, such as the Woman’s International Union Label League, and worked hard for labor issues, especially the eight-hour day. In return, labor unions lobbied the state legislature in 1911 to support the suffrage referendum and mobilized the male working class.
On October 10, 1911, the progressives led by now Governor Johnson placed twenty-three proposed amendments before California voters to break the corruption of machine politics. Among them was Proposition 8, women’s suffrage. It passed by a margin of two percent; its victory narrowly won with more working-class support than in 1896 (Gullet chap. 4).
