The tradition of women's political activism in the American West dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. As society modernized and urbanized, women combined their domestic authority with political activity to guide larger reform efforts. Although women used moral suasion to effect changes early on, as they became more politically active, they shifted to more direct influence. Women were seen as purifiers and protectors of the home and the family. Once they began to gain political influence, they extended their duties into the public arena to directly confront the problems of society. Western women achieved the vote earlier than women in the rest of the nation; California women won the franchise through popular referendum in 1911. Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 8 granted women "their right to representation" and "the sovereignty of full citizenship."[1] California presents an opportunity to study the impact of women in politics at a time when the national suffrage movement was achieving its greatest strength and when, presumably, California women would be most likely to behave politically in the responsible way the national movement asserted they would.

This study will attempt to bring women's political activities in California into sharper focus by examining how women participated in the political process following their suffrage victory in 1911. The primary focus will be the California Federation of Women's Clubs, an umbrella organization for hundreds of small clubs in communities around the state, and its activities during the 1913 state legislature.[2] The clubs of the Federation are examined because together they constituted the largest association of women in California at the time; these women plunged into politics with enthusiasm and a clear sense of purpose, organized a highly effective legislative lobby, and secured adoption of an impressive list of measures.

Over the last twenty years, historians have examined the relationship between women and politics in the United States. Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Carol Dubois provide descriptions and analyses of the early women's suffrage movement. Flexner notes, "It was in the abolition movement that women first learned to organize, to hold public meetings, to conduct campaigns," adding that "as abolitionists they first won the right to speak in public, and began to evolve a philosophy of their place in society and of their basic rights.[3] Flexner examines the combination of domestic ideals and abolitionist zeal, and she explains how some women used this combination to improve their position in society. Dubois focuses on the origins and development of the suffrage movement, describing the rise of industrial capitalism in the 1830s and 1840s and how the value of women's contributions to public life was marginalized. "Driven by their relegation to a separate, domestic sphere, which had always been marked by inequality, especially their own," DuBois writes, "women were also drawn, like men of their time, by the promise that political activity held for the creation of a truly democratic society.[4] These women, dissatisfied with other organizations, eventually formed their own movement dedicated to the betterment of society, based on their domestic orientation as guardians of home and family. Many of these organizations viewed the vote as the most useful tool in achieving these goals.

In seeking the vote, women created a strong nationwide movement, convinced the vote would make a significant difference for women, children, and the family-and for society as a whole. Often referred to as social housekeeping, Suzanne Lebsock calls this concept Social Progressivism. "Social Progressives attempted to deal with the human wreckage of industrial capitalism and, more positively, to exploit possibilities the new order seemed to promise for social justice.[5] One avenue women chose to this end was politics. Paula Baker broadly defines politics as "any action, formal or informal, taken to affect the course or behavior of government or the community.[6] Women's political activity evolved from moral suasion in the early nineteenth century into direct action during the Progressive Era. By the turn of the century, with the government taking on more responsibility for social order, women's groups recognized that the scope of social problems was such that they needed to turn to the government for assistance.[7]

Both Alan P. Grimes and Beverly Beeton examine the trends of woman suffrage in the West. Grimes concludes that woman suffrage was granted in the West for one underlying reason: it provided a stable nucleus of voting strength which could assist and protect the process of civilizing the frontier.[8] Beverly Beeton concludes that the West seemed to be a safe place to experiment with women's suffrage and states that little opposition to women voting existed in these areas.[9] Westerners were likely to support woman suffrage in order to help build a better society. In California, women did not let society down. California women remained politically active after gaining the vote, despite the common notion that the women's movement atrophied after winning the suffrage battle. Although the Western suffrage battle has received much attention, post-suffrage California has received little treatment. Judith Raftery has examined the activities of some Los Angeles clubwomen, but the larger picture of post-suffrage California women's political behavior remains blurry.[10]

Many California women had been involved in civic reform through various clubs since before the turn of the century, representing all interests, from literary clubs to reform societies. Some organizations dedicated themselves solely to gaining suffrage, changing their purpose upon realizing that goal; others, such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, centered on other issues.[11] Club members formed the California Federation of Women's Clubs in 1900 as a state component of the national General Federation of Women's Clubs.[12] The Federation encompassed clubs from around the state under one umbrella and provided a statewide organization, divided into regional districts. The women of the Federation held annual conventions, published magazines, and became involved in politics at all levels.[13] In the years before suffrage passed in California, they participated in politics indirectly; after 1911 they took a more active role. The Federation provided a natural place for women to become politically active. The power of clubwomen was best expressed by Mrs. J. C. Orr, President of the Federation during the 1913 legislative session:

We are, in effect, a public body, with representation in each community, town, and city in the state. Each unit, or club, has the power of immediate influence and action in its own community and if it works in accord with other departments in the California Federation of Woman's Clubs, it has the weight of the state organization behind it.[14]

The Federation's involvement in statewide politics was extensive enough that in 1917 members published a report claiming responsibility for a number of reform bills.[15]

Once suffrage was granted, many women's organizations, including the Federation, turned their attention to direct legislative efforts. As their own historian put it, "The newly enfranchised citizens realized that education in public affairs was their first business.[16] In May 1912, mere months after winning suffrage, the Federation held its regular state convention. Although some members urged caution about entering the political arena, the keynote of the Paso Robles convention program was boldly stated: "Legislation." The Federation already had a State Legislative Committee as well as several district committees. Mrs. Marion Swan, who chaired the state committee, presented a program emphasizing the importance of education in legislative matters. She also asserted the "franchise for women has given new importance and responsibility to the Legislative Committee. . . . women, anxious to use their new power in a wise and well-balanced way, cannot depend on intuition in this matter." For this reason she proposed to furnish all interested clubs with lists of bills endorsed by both the State and General Federations. The goal was to prepare for the California State Legislature session, which was to begin in January 1913. Swan requested "that clubs appoint legislative chairmen who will be in direct communication with the District and State chairmen.[17] At the Paso Robles convention, Federation members pledged themselves to further legislation in support of:

Health certificate for marriage Joint guardianship of children Community property rights for married women Tuberculin tests for dairies State registration of nurses Raising the majority for girls to twenty-one years Establishing a training school for girls Changing the name of Dead Man's Island to Esperanza, or Hope That Congress be urged to appropriate sufficient money to prohibit white slave traffic, the money to be expended by the Attorney General at the direction of the President Universal peace Preservation of the redwoods[18]

Nearly all these reforms reflected the social housekeeping nature of women's political involvement: they aimed to protect families, and the larger society, from corruption. Some bills would improve the position of women, while others would purify negative aspects of society.

Swan planned to coordinate the efforts of as many women's organizations as possible in order to mount a cohesive and unified campaign to secure passage of these bills. She envisioned a central legislative committee representing all large women's organizations in the state.[19] On 16 September 1912, Swan sent a letter to Mrs. J. W. Orr, the newly elected president of the State Federation, suggesting that alliances be made with other significant women's organizations. The W. C. T. U., Y. W. C. A., Mother's Congress, California Civic League, Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic, Women's Relief Corps, Humane Society, Central California Social Workers' Club, Auxiliary to the Locomotive Engineers, State Nurses' Association, Women's Socialist Union, and Women's College Alumnae received letters informing them of Swan's plan for a central lobbying body. In the letters Swan urged the need for cohesive cooperation to ensure that all of the bills received attention from legislators and the public. "Every bill," said Swan, "needs three things: 1. To be carefully drawn up without legal or technical flaws; 2. To have a legislator to present it; 3. To have the public thoroughly informed, educated, and interested as to the need of it. We must know that every measure has these three essentials attended to before the Legislature convenes: Without a central clearing house how can we know? . . . Let us apply business methods and obtain the largest total of results possible.[20]

Swan formally invited all state organizations of women to cooperate in forming the central committee. She held three organizational conferences, in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco.[21] The final conference, held in San Francisco on 7 December, produced the Women's Legislative Council of California.[22] The first legislative platform of the Federation earlier that fall had yielded seventeen proposed bills:

Health certificate for marriage Joint guardianship Community property Compensation for mothers Maternity homes Psychopathic parole societies Minimum wage for women State registration of nurses Women's building at the State Fair Iowa Injunction and Abatement Act State training school for girls Raising girls' majority to twenty-one Ethical, vocational, and hygienic training in the public schools Tuberculin tests for dairies To compel fathers to support illegitimate children Conservation Civil Service reform[23]

This list represents several months of refinement that was partly the result of political alliances among women's groups. For example, the Red Light Abatement Bill had been championed by the W. C. T. U. in the 1911 legislature, but had failed.[24] The Federation probably chose this as the best mechanism to fight white slavery. Championing this measure also strengthened its ties with the W. C. T. U.

Once the committee was organized and the list of bills finalized, the Women's Legislative Council of California opened headquarters at the Hotel Sacramento during both sessions of the 1913 Legislature.[25] This headquarters served a variety of purposes: an office where work relating to legislation could be done, an open house to display the activities of California's politically active women, and a clearinghouse for information, communication, and fellowship for women and their supporters.[26] Clubwomen were now in a position to keep a close accounting of legislators and the bills they supported. The headquarters also attracted several new supporters of the Federation's work, including Mrs. Wallace and Mrs. Healy, wife and sister of Lieutenant Governor Wallace; Mrs. Arthur Cornwall, editor of the Woman Citizen; and Mrs. Herbert Rowell, President of the California Congress of Mothers. The office attracted attention from across the nation, with articles appearing in several major publications including the Los Angeles Tribune and the Delineator. In another Federation public relations move, every legislator, on arriving at his desk the opening morning of the Legislature, found a card marked "First Legislative Platform of the Women's Legislative Council of California," with the council's list of seventeen proposed bills.[27]

A majority of the council's proposed bills passed both houses of the Legislature. Mrs. Swan dreamed of even greater success, saying, "Unfortunately the Council was organized too late to secure concerted action upon any bill, as a Council. That is a dream of strength in union which must be made its special work to realize next time. . . . Next time we shall be equipped with the wisdom of rich experience, and understand better how to marshal our forces for victory." The Joint Guardianship Bill (A. B. 199) was the first of the Federation's bills to pass both houses and receive the Governor's signature.[28] It gave fathers and mothers of unmarried minor children joint right to their custody, services, and earnings. It was introduced by Assemblyman Sutherland on 14 January, amended several times, and eventually passed.[29] Passage of this bill represented a dramatic improvement for women; previously, fathers had sole rights to their children.

Another major bill designed to protect women and children was the Health Certificate for Marriage Bill (A. B. 1126). The women who attended the Paso Robles Convention chose this statute as the first piece of concerted Federation legislative work. Mrs. Edson, the State Chairman of Health for the Federation, was also appointed to the Los Angeles County Board of Health.[30] The bill, drawn up by an expert at the State Board of Health, was designed to "do away with reckless marriages, and to save many young women from [venereal] disease." The bill passed both houses of the Legislature, despite opposition from a variety of sources. Mrs. Swan recalled, "Every inch of the way to victory had to be won by continued, cooperative, undaunted effort. . . . it was killing work." The bill failed to receive the Governor's signature because at the last minute it was revised to require only men to obtain a health certificate for marriage. "This leaving it a bill relating only to men, was regarded as 'class legislation,' and it was therefore vetoed," Mrs. Edson wrote.[31] Mrs. Edson also championed a bill at the Paso Robles Convention which aimed to eliminate the threat of tuberculin-infected cows and infected milk. Mrs. Edson reasoned, "children must have pure food in the first years of their life, and the first essential is clean milk from healthy cows.[32] The Pure Milk Bill, providing for rigid inspection of dairies and their regulation by the State Board of Health, also passed during this Legislature.

Yet another series of bills aimed to improve the legal position of women and overall living conditions. The Psychopathic Parole Law (S. B. 906-A. B. 1951) was designed to parole the mentally ill out of the lunacy court and provide for their care and maintenance while on parole and until recovery. At the same time the Legislature was condering this bill, women's organizations had been formed to look after the mentally ill. For example, the Psychopathic Parole Society of Los Angeles, under the leadership of Mrs. O. P. Clark, had established Resthaven, which became a model of parole houses.[33] The Regulation of Nurses Bill (S. B. 526) provided for certification of nurses by a state board and also for criminal action against any nurse practicing without registration. Gibson notes, "The bill had been before the State Legislature for eight years up to the time it was placed upon the first Legislative Program of the California Federation of Women's Clubs." Senate Bill 46 appropriated $200,000 to create a state training school for girls. The issues of mother's pensions, maternity houses, and orphan care were addressed in legislation considered in 1913 as well. A Mother's Pension Act (S. B. 1108) passed, providing for three children's agents to supervise a $430,000 annual fund to benefit orphans and half-orphans.[34] Another bill passed the legislature empowering the Governor to appoint a board to investigate and report on the merits of a system of mothers' pensions and old age insurance.[35] The Federation realized another goal with passage of a bill establishing a state Civil Service Commission (A. B. 2080). Emily Karns credited passage to "the persistent work of the Civil Service League, and of the California Federation of Women's Clubs, and of the open-mindedness of the legislature, and of the determination on the part of Governor Johnson to establish a merit system contributed to the enactment of the law.[36]

Women played a key role in passing one of the more controversial bills passed in the 1913 Legislature: the Red Light Abatement Bill (A. B. 353). The Red-light Abatement Bill had been defeated during the 1911 Legislature, after a tough fight. During the Paso Robles Convention, the measure had been endorsed by the Federation and placed upon its Legislative Program.[37] The bill, designed to combat prostitution and "red light districts," was introduced by Lewis D. Bohnett.[38] This bill received much attention, due in large part to women's organizations, including the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Federated Women's Clubs, the Civic League, the Juvenile Protective Association, and many smaller bodies. Franklin Hichborn, a leading Progressive in the Legislature, noted: "during the legislative recess the proponents of the bill canvassed the entire State in its promotion. Women's organizations which definitely endorsed and worked for the measure represented a membership of about 50,000 organized women.[39] The women's efforts were rewarded as senators and assemblymen received literally thousands of telegrams and letters urging them to support the act. Franklin Hichborn enthused, "no better publicity work was carried on for any other measure. And the remarkable part of it was that the work was done by women, who were entirely ignorant of legislative methods, inexperienced in publicity, unfamiliar with political conditions.[40] This mobilization of public opinion proved key to the passage of the bill. "Man after man arose in his seat to say, 'I do not believe in this measure, but so many of my constituents do that I am compelled reluctantly to vote for it.[41] Women also spoke on behalf of the bill in the Senate chamber.[42] Despite well-organized opposition, the bill passed and was signed by the Governor. When a petition forced a statewide referendum, the voters of California upheld the law.[43]

Overall, the First Legislative Platform met with success; near the end of the legislative session, Mrs. Swan claimed, "nearly all of the Federation bills have passed both houses.[44] The majority of the Federation's platform passed the Legislature, with the exception of the Community Property Bill and a bill establishing a women's building at the State Fair. In addition, Mrs. Swan's annual report following this session of the Legislature reported passage of a number of other bills in which the women of the Federation were interested. These included a bill allowing school houses to be used as civic centers, a bill to compel fathers to support their illegitimate children, a forestry conservation bill, and a kindergarten bill.[45] Hichborn also mentions a teacher's pension bill (A. B. 1263) and a white slavery bill (S. B. 676), which passed during this session.[46] These clubwomen did not support some of the more outrageous bills that legislators apparently introduced to curry the favor of women voters. One such bill, introduced by Senator Cassidy of San Francisco, "would have established a whipping post for wife beaters. . . . it provided that thongs for beating shall be of rawhide, of good width and length, and fairly attached to a strong handle; that the lashes be laid on the bare back of the convicted man in the jail yard, and in the presence of twelve reputable citizens." Senator Cassidy's bill was the second such bill proposed during the 1913 Legislature.[47] Most women could distinguish between genuine reform and political pandering, and the Federation did not support these bills. Despite Mrs. Swan's concern that the council could have done more, its record during the 1913 Legislature demonstrated how much organized women could accomplish.

The Legislative Council had proven a success, and Federation women made plans to make the organization permanent. A committee, including representatives from each of the five largest charter organizations of the council, was appointed to work on a constitution.[48] In fall 1913, representative clubwomen, many of whom had been members of the Legislative Council the previous year, met in Los Angeles to form a large and permanent organization to promote favored legislation.[49] In the years that followed, the Federation repeatedly used its influence to educate the public and mobilize support for reform legislation. For example, in her annual report for 1914 Mrs. James L. Harbaugh, the Federation's State Chairman of Legislation, wrote, "there has been a great demand all year for literature on legislative matter. . . . early in the year we sent as many copies of the book, Laws of Interest to Women and Children, as we could procure, together with outlines of measures passed at the 1913 Legislature.[50]

Women gained power with passage of suffrage in 1911, but they gained political confidence in the Legislature of 1913. After a long campaign to gain suffrage, they learned that organized, concentrated, and carefully applied political involvement could enact the reforms they supported. Organized clubwomen's activities did not stop with passing laws; they also encouraged public education in the interests of dealing with the problems of society. To this end they published a recommended reading list in the Woman Citizen, including books that described many social ills.[51]

The reforms that these women's groups supported echo those for which nineteenth-century women agitated, as outlined by Flexner. They embody an extension of the social housekeeping doctrine and demands to improve the legal position of women. For example, Elizabeth Cady Stanton had promoted joint guardianship of children and training schools for girls thirty years before they were passed into California law. In their attempts to deal with the fallout of industrial capitalism, women examined social and industrial conditions, then set about to reform them. Measures such as the heath certificate for marriage, minimum wage bill, women's eight-hour bill, and pure milk bill reflect the Progressive nature of these women's attitudes towards the evolving modern society and continue women's perceived role as purifier of society. Nothing demonstrates this better than the crusade of the women's groups' against prostitution. In the 1913 Legislature alone, three bills passed combating white slavery: the Red Light Abatement Bill, the White Slavery Bill, and the Age of Consent Bill. Obviously these women were determined that the lax attitudes of some public officials towards prostitution should be changed.

California women were also interested in securing a place for themselves in the new social order. The School House Civic Center Bill, for example, was designed to aid women's organizations. If schoolhouses were declared civic centers, women's clubs could use the facilities without paying. Women attempted to replace the saloon with the schoolhouse as the center of political organization and mobilization. In the larger picture, women were shaping new professional roles, and they wanted assistance through legal channels. Teachers' pensions and civil service reform aided women in their professional aspirations. These women also supported an early version of the welfare state. Several measures they promoted provided for those who could not provide for themselves. Old age, mothers', and orphan pensions, and laws designed to make men support illegitimate children, all foreshadowed federal policies that eventually culminated in the Aid for Families with Dependent Children, passed during the New Deal. This type of legislation also reflected society's growing reliance on government intervention to ensure social justice.

These clubwomen's activities also demonstrate the power of interest groups. As demonstrated in the case of the Red Light Abatement Bill, the Federation women's primary tool for legislative action was public opinion. Clubwomen believed that if the public knew about the pending fight over the bill they would support it. So, during the legislative break, they mobilized an army of workers to raise public awareness, with exceptional results.

Finally, the political activities of women's groups demonstrate another characteristic of the Progressive Era, the impact of experts upon legislation and public policy. Women organized to push needed reforms, sought advice from outside professionals, and lobbied to pass reform measures. An example of this is the fight for the Pure Milk Bill. Women noticed a problem with milk by observing events in their everyday lives, sought the counsel of the state veterinarian, and had a bill drawn up to combat the problem.

During the long battle for suffrage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, women were frequently asked to explain why they needed the ballot and what they would do with it. Over the course of several decades they developed ideological responses to these questions based on their role as social housekeepers-answers they truly believed. California women gained the vote partly because Westerners believed women would help reform society, and the California Federation of Women's Clubs did accomplish many reforms through direct legislative action after 1911. The importance of women's political activities in California after winning the vote in 1911 is embodied in Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 22, adopted by the California Legislature in 1915. The resolution was designed to correct "erroneous reports regarding California's experience under Woman Suffrage.[52] The Legislators, upon hearing negative reports in other states about California's experiences since 1911, endorsed resolution asserting that the experience of the state amply justified the adoption of woman's suffrage, that the people of California would re-endorse woman's suffrage if a new election were held, and that the adoption of Woman Suffrage by California is one of the important factors contributing to the marked political, social, and industrial advancement made by our people in recent years, and that any disparagement of the cause of Women's Suffrage attempted elsewhere on the ground that Woman Suffrage is not satisfactory to this State has no basis in fact, and is signally disproved by the acknowledged intelligence and discrimination shown by women voters in the settling of our great political and industrial problems at the polls.[53]

The resolution was adopted by a vote of twenty-one to zero. It justified decades of agitation for equal suffrage. Women had done what they had said they would do, and California's leaders acknowledged their achievements. Unfortunately it would be another five years before the nation as a whole would endorse the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

. . . . .

1. Mary Gibson, A Record of Twenty-Five Years of the California Federation of Women's Clubs 1900-1925 (California Federation of Women's Clubs, 1927), 68.

2. I will refer to the California Federation of Women's Clubs as the Federation for the remainder of the paper.

3. Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States: (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), 41.

4. Ellen Carol Dubois, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 1848-1869 (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1978), 16-19.

5. Suzanne Lebsock, "Women and American Politics, 1880-1920," in Women, Politics, and Change, ed. Louise Tilly and Patricia Gurin (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990), 46.

6. Paula Baker, "The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Society, 1780-1920," American Historical Review 89 (1984): 622.

7. Ibid.

8. Alan Grimes, The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), 75.

9. Beverly Beeton, Women Vote in the West: The Suffrage Movement 1869-1896 (New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1986), vi-vii.

10. Judith Raftery, "Los Angeles Clubwomen and Progressive Reform," in California Progressivism Revisited, ed. William Deverell and Tom Sitton (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994). Also interesting is Carole Nichols' "Votes And More for Women: Suffrage and After in Connecticut," Women & History 5 (1983): 1-86, which examines women's voting in Connecticut and the opposition they faced.

11. An example of one such group is the College Equal Suffrage League of Northern California; after 1911 they became the California Civic Federation whose object was to "work for the civic betterment of California . . . to make good," College Equal Suffrage League of Northern California, Winning Equal Suffrage in California: Reports of the Committees of the College Equal Suffrage League of Northern California in the Campaign of 1911, (College Equal Suffrage League of Northern California, 1913).

12. Gibson, 2.

13. My primary purpose here is to give a brief introduction to the California Federation of Women's Clubs; for a more complete history of the early years of the Federation see Gibson.

14. Gibson, 136.

15. Mrs. Seward A Simons, A Survey of the Results of Woman Suffrage in California, [Dave Collidge Collection], 1917. The report also details numbers of registered women voters in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

16. Gibson, 181.

17. Ibid., 182.

18. Ibid., 182-83.

19. "Swan attributes the idea of the Legislative Council to Mrs. Mary A. Kenny, the Legislative Chairman of the Los Angeles District," Ibid., 188, n. 1

20. Ibid., 184.

21. Ibid., 185.

22. "Mrs. Swan was elected Chairman, Miss Anna E. Chase was appointed Treasurer, and Mrs. C. W. Weyman, Secretary," Ibid., 186-87.

23. These are the bills proposed for the State Legislature; there were also four Federal measures requested: "Uniform Marriage and Divorce Laws; Conservation of Womanhood, Childhood, Home; Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Act; Peace Measures." Notice the changes from the proposals agreed to at the Paso Robles Convention of May 1912. Preservation of the Redwoods has become the more general Conservation, the request for funds to fight white slavery has been changed to the Iowa Abatement Act, and Universal Peace has been shifted to the Federal government. Ibid., 186.

24. Franklin Hichborn, Story of the California Legislature of 1913, (San Francisco: James H. Barry Company, 1913), 322-23. Hichborn states "A similar measure to the Iowa law was introduced at the 1911 session of the California Legislature. It met with strong opposition, but did not attract much attention from the general public. . . . following the adjournment of the 1911 session, the Women's Christian Temperance Union . . . undertook a campaign of education in the interest of such legislation. . . . by the time the 1913 Legislature convened, California was awake to the issue."

25. Gibson, 187. It is interesting to note that this was the first year the California State Legislature met in a split session; the dates were 4 January-4 February and 10 March-12 May 1913.

26. Mrs. Swan recalls, "Our headquarters at the Hotel Sacramento was a great help, bringing us into close and helpful companionship with the experienced women of other organizations--especially the W. C. T. U." Ibid., 201.

27. Ibid., 187-88.

28. Ibid., 190. Unless otherwise noted, the numbers and contents of the bills are taken from Hichborn.

29. California State Legislature, Sessions of California State Legislature Bill Sets, 1913 session (Micro Photo Division, Bell and Howell). The dates of introduction, amendment, and passage are all taken from the Sessions Bill Sets.

30. Katherine Phillips Edson, Woman Citizen 3 (December 1912): 12. Mrs. Edson wrote, "Our business is to send men to Sacramento who will (support these bills)."

31. Ibid., 190-91.

32. Edson, 12.

33. Gibson, 191.

34. Ibid., 194-5.

35. The committee consisted of: Katherine Felton, of the San Francisco Associated Charities; William McCarty, San Francisco supervisor; Mrs. Frances Noel, Los Angeles social worker; Dr. Flora Smith, Kingsburg social worker; and John Francis Neylan, chairman State Board of Control, Ibid., 195.

36. Emily Karns, "New California Civil Service Law," Woman Citizen 3 (September 1913): 20-21.

37. Gibson, 195.

38. Lewis D. Bohnett, interview by Helen M. Brewer and Willa K. Baum, 18 November 1964, Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 59.

39. Hichborn, Legislature of 1913, 327. For a more in-depth accounting of the Red Light Abatement fight, see this volume.

40. Ibid., 327.

41. Gibson, 188.

42. Mrs. Swan recounts the tale of her experience and how the lights went out as she was preparing to speak; Ibid., 193.

43. Bohnett, 59.

44. Gibson, 190.

45. Ibid., 197.

46. Hichborn, Legislature of 1913, Tables VII-VIII. Hichborn includes three tables that examine the votes of Senators and Assemblymen on "issues of interest to women."

47. Florence Collins Porter, "From A Woman's Point of View," Woman Citizen 2 (January 1913): 1.

48. Representatives included Mrs. William E. Colby, California Federation of Women's Clubs; Miss Anita Colby, California Civic League; Mrs. H. N. Rowell, California Congress of Mothers; Mrs. Mary Roberts Coolidge, Association of College Alumnae; and Miss Anna E. Chase, Women's Christian Temperance Union. Fifty-three individual clubs, representing over twenty thousand women, were listed as charter organizations. Gibson, 197-98.

49. Ibid., 199.

50. California Federation of Woman's Clubs, Yearbook 1914-1915, (San Diego: Campbell Printers, 1915), 79.

51. The list included: The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, by Jane Addams; Commercialized Prostitution in New York City, published by the Bureau of Social Hygiene of the Rockefeller Fund; Life and Labor, published by the National Women's Trade Union League; The Task of Social Hygiene, by Havelock Ellis; The New Democracy, by Walter Weyl; Women and Labor, by Olive Schreiner; and Damaged Goods, by Eugene Brieux. Woman Citizen 3 (September 1913): 13.

52. Franklin Hichborn, Story of the California Legislature of 1915, (San Francisco: James H. Barry Company, 1916), 180.

53. Ibid., 179-80.

. . . . .

Jarrod L. Harrison presented this paper in March 1997 to the Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery's "The Image of the West in Literature, Art, and the Media" conference in Colorado Springs. He is completing a master of arts in history at SFSU in Spring 1997, with a major in United States history and a minor in the history of women. Harrison received a bachelor of arts in history from California State University, Stanislaus, in 1994.