The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 115

Remembering the hard struggle by which the right to practice law had been secured to women, and the danger of leaving it to the caprice of future legislatures, Mrs. Gordon drafted a clause which protects women in all lawful vocations, and by persistent effort succeeded in getting it inserted in the new const.i.tution, as follows:

ARTICLE XX., SEC. 18. No person shall, on account of s.e.x, be disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful business, vocation or profession.

The adoption of this clause, so valuable to women, was mainly accomplished by the skillful diplomacy of Hon. Charles S.

Ringgold, delegate from San Francisco, who introduced it in the convention and worked faithfully for its adoption. Thus California stands to-day one of the first States in the Union, as regards the educational, industrial and property rights of women, and the probability of equal political rights being secured to them at an early day, is conceded by the most conservative.

About the time Mrs. Foltz and Mrs. Gordon were admitted to the bar, they, as chief officers of the State W. S. S.

(incorporated), called a convention in San Francisco. It convened in February, 1880, and was well attended. Mrs. Sargent took an active part in the meetings, occupied the chair as president _pro tem._, and subsequently spoke of the work done by the National a.s.sociation in Washington. Several prominent officials, unable to be present, sent letters heartily endorsing our claims; among these were Governor Perkins, State Senator Chace, and A. M.

Crane, judge of the Superior Court. Addresses were delivered by Judge Swift, Marian Todd and Mrs. Thornd.y.k.e of Los Angeles, Judge Palmer of Nevada city, and others. The newspapers of the city, though still hostile to the object of the convention, gave very fair reports. In September following, the annual meeting of the society was held, and made particularly interesting by the fact that the proposed new city charter, which contained a clause proscriptive of women, was denounced, and a plan of action agreed upon whereby its defeat should be secured, if possible, at the coming election. The women worked a.s.siduously against the adoption of the city charter, and rejoiced to see it rejected by a large majority.

The following facts in regard to the const.i.tution and statute laws of California were sent us by the Hon. A. A. Sargent:

In 1879, California adopted a new const.i.tution, by means of a const.i.tutional convention. It was an unfortunate time for such organic legislation, for the reason that the State was rife at the time with the agitation of "sand-lotters," as they were called, a violent faction which a.s.sailed property rights and demanded extreme concessions to labor. The balance of power in the const.i.tutional convention was held by persons elected by this element, and resulted in a const.i.tution extraordinary in some of its features, but which was adopted by the people after a fierce contest.

Women fared badly at the hands of these const.i.tution-makers, so far as suffrage is concerned. Section 1, article 2, confirms the right of voting to "every native male citizen,"

and "every male naturalized citizen," although a heroic effort was made by the friends of woman suffrage to keep out the word "male." But section 18, article XX., provides that "no person shall, on account of s.e.x, be disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful business, vocation or profession."

Some years before, the State had adopted a "civil code,"

which was abreast of the world in liberality to women. This code discarded the idea of any servility in the relation of the wife to the husband. This code is still the law, and provides, in effect, that husband and wife contract toward each other obligations of mutual respect, fidelity and support. The husband is the head of the family, and may choose any reasonable place and mode of life, and the wife must conform thereto. Neither has any interest in the property of the other, and neither can be excluded from the other's dwelling. Either may enter into any engagement or transaction with the other, or with any other person, respecting property, which either might if unmarried. They may hold property as tenants in common or otherwise, with each other, and with others. All property of the wife owned by her before marriage, and acquired afterwards by gift, devise, bequest or descent, with the rents, issues and profit thereof, is her separate property, and she may convey the same without his consent. All property acquired after marriage is community property. The earnings of the wife are not liable for the debts of the husband. Her earnings, and those of minor children in her custody, are her separate property. A married woman may dispose of her separate property by will, without the consent of her husband, as if she were single. One-half of the community property goes absolutely to the wife, on the death of the husband, and cannot be diverted by his testamentary disposition. A married woman can carry on business in her own name, on complying with certain formalities, and her stock, capital and earnings are not liable to her husband's creditors, or his intermeddling. The husband and father, as such, has no rights superior to those of the wife and mother, in regard to the care, custody, education and control of the children of their marriage, while such husband and wife live separate and apart from each other.

The foregoing exhibits the spirit of the California law. It is believed by friends of woman suffrage that had the convention been held under normal conditions, the word "male" might have been eliminated from that instrument.

Several creditable attempts were early made in journalism. In 1855 Mrs. S. M. Clark published the weekly _Contra Costa_ in Oakland. In 1858, _The Hesperian_, a semi-monthly magazine, was issued in San Francisco, Mrs. Hermione Day and Mrs. A. M. Shultz, editors. It was quite an able periodical,[505] and finally pa.s.sed into the hands of Elizabeth T. Schenck.

As journalists and printers, women have met with encouraging success. The most prominent among them is Laura DeForce Gordon, who began the publication of the _Daily Leader_ at Stockton in 1873, continued afterward at Oakland as the _Daily Democrat_, until 1878. In Geo. P. Rowell's _Newspaper Reporter_ for 1874, the _Stockton Leader_ is announced as "the only daily newspaper in the world edited and published by a woman." Mrs. Boyer, known as "Dora Darmoor," published different magazines and journals in San Francisco during a period of several years, the most successful being the _Golden Dawn_. Mrs. Theresa Corlett has been connected with various leading journals of San Francisco, and is well known as a brilliant and interesting writer. Miss Madge Morris has not only made a place for herself in light literature, but has been acting-clerk in the legislature for several sessions. Mrs. Sarah M. Clark published a volume ent.i.tled "Teachings of the Ages"; Mrs. Josephine Wolcott, a volume of poems, called "The World of Song."

Mrs. Amanda Sloc.u.m Reed, one of our most efficient advocates of suffrage, has proved her executive ability, and capacity for business, by the management of a large printing and publishing establishment for several years. The liberal magazine called _Common Sense_, was published by her and her husband--most of its original contents the product of her pen; and when the radicalism of her husband caused the suspension of that journal in 1878, Mrs. Sloc.u.m began the publication of _Roll Call_, a temperance magazine which was mainly edited by her gifted little daughter Clara, only fifteen years old, who also set all the type. Among the earliest printers of California was Lyle Lester.

She established a printing office in San Francisco in 1860, in which she employed a large number of girls and women as compositors. Miss Delia Murphy--now Mrs. Dearing--ranks with the best printers in San Francisco, and several women in various portions of the State have taken like standing. "Mrs. Richmond & Son," is the novel sign which decorates the front of a large printing establishment on Montgomery street, San Francisco, known for many years as the "Woman's Cooperative Printing Company," but which, in fact, was always an individual enterprise. Mrs. Augusta DeForce Cluff has entered upon her seventh year in practical journalism as publisher of a sprightly weekly, the _Valley Review_, at Lodi, in which enterprise she has met with remarkable success, being a superior business manager as well as a facile and talented writer. Some of her little poems have great merit.

Mrs. Cluff and Mrs. Gordon have both filled official positions in the Pacific Coast Press a.s.sociation. Miss Mary Bogardus, the gifted young daughter of that pioneer journalist, H. B. Bogardus, editor of _Figaro_, is her father's main a.s.sistant in all the business of his office. Mrs. Wittingham has been elected postmaster of the State Senate several terms, and is at present employed in the U. S. branch mint in San Francisco.

One of the most meritorious and successful enterprises occupying the attention of the women of California, is the silk culture, which promises to develop into one of the dominant industries of the nation. Mrs. G. H. Hittel first brought the subject into public notice by able articles on the cultivation of the mulberry tree, published in various journals. In 1880 she formed the Ladies' Silk Culture Society of California. This a.s.sociation like its predecessor, the first Woman Suffrage Society, was organized and held its meetings in private parlors for a time, but it soon required more room. Men have been taken into membership since the object for which the society was formed seemed to be feasible, and, as a natural result, whatever of financial and honorary reward may be accorded the self-sacrificing women who performed the arduous and thankless labor of founding the inst.i.tution, will be shared with the men who now come into the work.

During the session of the legislature of 1883, a committee was appointed to ask an appropriation from the State for the purpose of establishing a Filature or free silk-reeling school. After considerable delay the committee called to their aid Mrs. Gordon, and asked her to visit the State capital and see what could be done. The session was rapidly drawing to a close, and even the warmest friends of the measure feared that it was too late to accomplish anything. But happily the bill was got through both branches of the legislature and sent to the governor the last hour of the session. By its provisions a State Board of Silk Culture was created consisting of nine members, five of whom were to be women, and the sum of $7,500 was appropriated. Thus women have begun and are now fostering a great industrial enterprise which in the near future will give to millions of hitherto unemployed or ill-paid women and children an occupation peculiarly suited to them, and which will add millions of dollars annually to the revenue of the country. Mrs. Florence Kimball of San Diego county was appointed a member of the State Board of Silk Commissioners by Governor Stoneman in 1883.

Since the expiration of their term as superintendents of the public schools of the State, Dr. and Mrs. James Carr have made their home in that loveliest spot of southern California--Pa.s.sadena, where, overlooking rich orange groves and luxurious vineyards, they enjoy the blessings of prosperity, and where Mrs. Carr, with her ambitious, active nature, finds congenial employment in demonstrating what woman can accomplish in silk-culture, raisin-making, and the crystalizing of fruit.

Miss Austen, formerly a teacher in the public schools of San Francisco, has a vineyard at Fresno, where she employs women and girls to prepare all her considerable crop of raisins for market, conceded to be of the best quality produced in the State. Mrs.

Ellen McConnell Wilson of Sacramento county, from the small beginning, twenty years ago, of 320 acres of land, and less than 1,000 sheep, has now over 5,000 acres of rich farming land and 6,000 sheep. Mrs. H. P. Gregory of Sacramento, left a widow with a large family of little children, succeeded her husband in the shipping and commission business in which he was engaged on a small scale. From such a beginning, Mrs. Gregory has built up one of the largest trades in that city, and has by judicious investments in real estate acquired property of a value exceeding $100,000, besides having reared and educated her numerous family.

Mrs. Elizabeth Hill was one of the early settlers in Calaveras county, where her husband located land on the Mokelumne river near Camanche in 1855. Six years after she was left a widow with four little children. The support of the family devolved upon the mother, and she engaged in cultivating the land, adding thereto several hundred acres. In 1877 Mrs. Hill began the cultivation of the Persian-insect-powder plant, known to commerce as Buhach. So successful has this venture proved that she has now over 200 acres planted to that shrub, and manufactures each year about fifteen tons of the Buhach powder, for which she finds a ready sale. The number of women who have supported their families (often including the husband), and acquired a competency in boarding and lodging-house keeping, dressmaking, millinery, type-setting, painting, fancy work, stock-dealing, and even in manufacturing and mercantile pursuits, is legion.

In regard to the position of women in medicine, Miss Elizabeth Sargent, M. D., writes:

Women are admitted on equal terms with men to the medical and dental departments of the State University, and to the Cooper Medical College of San Francisco. Women are also eligible to membership in the State and various county medical a.s.sociations, as well as in the dental a.s.sociation.

There are in the State 73 women who have been recognized by the authorities as qualified to practice. They may be cla.s.sified as follows: Pract.i.tioners of regular medicine, 30, 16 of whom are established in San Francisco; eclectics, 22, 9 in San Francisco; h.o.m.oeopathists, 21, 2 in San Francisco. Among these physicians two make a specialty of the eye and ear, one in San Francisco and one in San Jose.

Two women have been graduated from the State Dental College, located in San Francisco. In April, 1875, the Pacific Dispensary Hospital for women and children was founded by women. In 1881 a training-school for nurses was added. The hospital department, although admitting women, is intended especially for children, and is the only children's hospital on the coast. The dispensary is for out-patients, both women and children. The board of ten directors, the resident and attending physicians of the hospital, and five out of the seven connected with the dispensary are women. From a small beginning the inst.i.tution has increased to importance, and bids fair to continue in its present prosperity and capacity for good work. I have written thus lengthily that you may see how energetic our women have been in originating and carrying on such an inst.i.tution.

The most prominent literary woman of the coast is undoubtedly Miss M. W. Shinn. She is a graduate of our State University and was the medal scholar of her cla.s.s. At present she is the editor of the _Overland Monthly_, and the excellent prospects of the magazine are largely the result of her own courage and the hard work she has done.

The higher education in the State is being put upon a secure basis. Hon. Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, have recently given a great part of their vast fortune for the establishment of a university which bids fair to be the foremost educational inst.i.tution on the continent. In a letter specifying his views in regard to the management of the university, Governor Stanford says:

We deem it of the first importance that the education of both s.e.xes shall be equally full and complete, varied only as nature dictates. The rights of one s.e.x, political and other, are the same as those of the other s.e.x, and this equality of rights ought to be fully recognized.

There are many men and women throughout the State who have faithfully advocated political equality for all citizens.[506]

Mendocino county has the honor of claiming as a citizen, one of the earliest and ablest women in this reform, Clarina Howard Nichols, who may be said to have sown the seeds of liberty in three States in which she has resided, Vermont, Kansas and California. Since 1870, her home has been with a son in Pomo, where she finished her heroic life January 11, 1885. Though always in rather straitened circ.u.mstances, Mrs. Nichols was uniformly calm and cheerful, living in an atmosphere above the petty annoyances of every-day life with the great souls of our day and generation, keeping time in the march of progress. She was too much absorbed in the vital questions of the hour even to take note of her personal discomforts. Many of her able articles published in magazines and the journals of the day, and letters from year to year to our conventions, were written in such conditions of weakness and suffering, as only a hero could have overcome. She was a good writer, an effective speaker, and a preeminently brave woman, gifted with that rarest of all virtues, common sense.

The advocacy of woman's rights began in Santa Cruz county, with the advent of that grand champion of her s.e.x, the immortal Eliza Farnham, who braved public scorn and contumely because of her advanced views, for many years before the suffrage movement a.s.sumed organized form. Mrs. Farnham's work rendered it possible for those advocating woman suffrage years later, to do so with comparative immunity from public ridicule. A society was organized there in 1869, and Rev. D. G. Ingraham, E. B. Heac.o.c.k, H. M. Blackburn, Mrs. Georgiana Bruce Kirby, Mrs. Van Valkenburgh, W. W. Broughton and wife, and Mrs. Jewell were active members.

Prominent in Santa Clara county is Mrs. Sarah Wallis of Mayfield.

From the first agitation of the subject in 1868, when she entered heartily into the work of getting subscribers to _The Revolution_, she has been untiring in her efforts to advance the interests of women. A lady of fine presence, great energy and perseverance, Mrs. Wallis has been able to accomplish great good for her s.e.x. With a large separate estate, when the statutes prevented her as a married woman from managing it, she determined that the laws should be changed, and never ceased her efforts until she succeeded in getting an amendment to the civil code which enables married women to make contracts. The most successful suffrage meetings ever held in Santa Clara county have been at Mayfield. There Mrs. Wallis and her husband, Judge Joseph S. Wallace, make their s.p.a.cious and luxurious home the rendezvous of lecturers and writers in the great work of woman's emanc.i.p.ation.

Mrs. Sarah Knox Goodrich of San Jose, was among the first to see the significance of the movement for woman's rights in 1868. Her husband, William J. Knox, who shortly before his death had been State senator, secured the pa.s.sage of a bill, drafted by himself, giving to married women the right to dispose of their own separate property by will. Having been from her youth the cherished companion of a man who believed in the equality of the s.e.xes, and being herself a thoughtful, clear-headed person, she naturally took her place with those whose aim was the social and political emanc.i.p.ation of woman, and has stood from the first a tower of strength in this cause, giving largely of her wealth for the propagation of its doctrines. Mrs. Knox Goodrich has for many years paid her taxes, sometimes exorbitant, under protest, and at important elections has also offered her vote, to have it refused. The county suffrage society has had an untiring leader in Mrs. Goodrich, and on all occasions she has nerved the weak and encouraged the timid by her example of unflinching devotion.

The following extracts from a letter written by the lady will show how effective her work has been:

In 1872, our society was invited to take part in the Fourth of July celebration, which we did, and had the handsomest carriages and more of them than any other society in the procession. We paid our own expenses, although the city had made an appropriation for the celebration. In 1876 we were not invited to take part in the festivities, but some of us felt that on such a day, our centennial anniversary, we should not be ignored. Accordingly I started out to see what could be done, but finding some of our most active friends ill and others absent from home, I decided to do what I could alone. I had mottoes from the grand declarations of the Fathers painted and put on my house, which the procession would pa.s.s on two sides.

Some of our most prominent ladies seeing that I was determined to make a manifestation, drove with me in the procession, our carriage and horses decorated with flags, the ladies wearing sashes of red, white and blue, and bearing banners with mottoes and evergreens. A little daughter of Mrs. Clara Foltz, the lawyer, dressed in red, white and blue, was seated in the center of the carriage, carrying a white banner with silver fringe, a small flag at the top with a silver star above that, with streamers of red, white and blue floating from it, and in the center, in letters large enough to be seen some distance, the one word "Hope." On my flag the motto was: "We are Taxed without being Represented"; Mrs. Maria H. Weldon's, "We are the disfranchised Cla.s.s"; Mrs. Marion Hooker's, "The Cla.s.s ent.i.tled to respectful Consideration"; and Miss Hannah Millard's, "We are governed without our Consent." On the front of my house in large letters was the motto: "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny as much in 1876, as it was in 1776"; on the other side was, "We are Denied the Ballot, but Compelled to Pay Taxes"; fronting the other side was, "Governments Derive their Just Powers from the Consent of the Governed." Mrs. McKee also had the last motto on her house. On the evening of July 3, after we had all our preparations completed, we sent to one of the marshals and asked him to give us a place in the procession _next to the negroes_, as we wished to let our legal protectors have a practical ill.u.s.tration of the position occupied by their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters in this boasted republic. We _did_ want to go in, however, _ahead of the Chinamen_, as we considered our position at present to be between the two. The marshal willingly a.s.signed us a place, but not the one we desired. "We cannot allow you," said he, "to occupy such a position. You must go in front, next to the Pioneer a.s.sociation"; and being in part members of that society we accepted the decision. Our carriage was the center of attraction. Many, after reading our mottoes, said: "Well, ladies, we will help you to get your rights"; "It is a shame for you to be taxed and not have the right to vote."

Hundreds of people stood and read the mottoes on the house, making their comments, both grave and gay: "Good for Mrs.

Knox"; "She is right"; "If I were in her place I would never pay a tax"; "I guess one of the strong-minded lives here."

Mrs. Knox was married to Mr. Goodrich, the well-known architect, in 1878, in whom she has found a grand, n.o.ble-souled companion, fully in sympathy with all her progressive views, and with whom she is pa.s.sing the advancing years of her well-spent life in luxury and unalloyed happiness.

Mrs. Van Valkenburg tried to vote under the claim that the fourteenth amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States ent.i.tled her to registration, and being refused, brought suit against the registrars. The case was decided against her after being carried to the Supreme Court of California. These cases argued in the Supreme Court have been of inestimable value in the progress of the movement, lifting the question of woman's rights as a citizen above the mists of ridicule and prejudice, into the region of reason and const.i.tutional law. We cannot too highly appreciate the bravery and persistence of the few women who have furnished these test cases and compelled the highest courts to record their decisions.

FOOTNOTES:

[496] Having spent several days with Mrs. Schenck, in her cozy, artistic home surrounded with a hedge of brilliant geraniums, I can readily testify to the many virtues and attractions her large circle of friends has always accorded her. From all I had heard I was prepared to find Mrs. Schenck a woman of remarkable cultivation and research, and I was not disappointed. Refined, honorable in her feeling, clear in her judgments of men and measures, just and upright In all her words and actions, she was indeed the fitting leader for the uprising of women on the Pacific Slope. The preparation of this chapter occupied the last year of her life, her one wish to live was to complete the task, but when her failing powers made that impossible she charged her friend Mrs. Manning, with whom she resided, to take up the work that had fallen from her hands and make a fair record of all that had been done and said, by her n.o.ble coadjutors, who had labored so faithfully to inaugurate the greatest reform of the century.--[E. C. S.

[497] Among them are Laura Fowler, Kate Kennedy, Mary N. Wadleigh, Trinity County; Anna L. Spencer, Alpine; Mrs. D. M. Coleman, Shasta; Miss A. L. Irish, Mono; Los Angeles City Board of Education has three women out of its five members, to-wit., Mrs. C. B. Jones (chairman), Mrs. M. A. Hodgkins (secretary), Mrs. M. Graham.

Oakland Board, Miss A. Aldrich; Sacramento, Charlotte Slater; San Jose, Mrs. B. L. Hollenbeck. Sister Mary Frances of the order of "Sisters of Charity" came to California in 1849, and devoted her great energies, and rare accomplishments, to the cause of education up to the time of her demise in April, 1881. Annie Haven, Miss Prince, Miss Austin, and a host of others have been successful in the same field of labor, including Miss Merweidel, founder of the kindergarten system in San Francisco.

[498] Among them were Mrs. Sarah Wallis of Mayfield, Mrs. E. T.

Schenck, Mrs. L. M. Clarke, Emily Pitts (afterwards Mrs. Stevens of San Francisco).

[499] _President_, Elizabeth T. Schenck; _Vice-President_, Emily Pitts Stevens; _Recording Secretary_, Mrs. Hutchinson; _Corresponding Secretary_, Mrs. Celia Curtis; _Treasurer_, Mrs. S.

J. Corbett.

[500] The following persons were present: Mrs. E. T. Schenck, president of Woman Suffrage a.s.sociasion of San Francisco; Mrs. E.

Pitts Stevens, Mrs. Celia Curtis, Mrs. Walton, Mrs. Watson, Mrs. S.

J. Corbett, M. D.; Mary Collins, Mrs. E. P. Meade, M. D.; Mrs.

Alpheus Bull, Mrs. James S. Bush, Mrs. S. M. Clarke, Mrs. Judge Shafter, Mrs. Judge Burke, Mrs. Thomas Varney, Mrs. R. B. Swain, Mrs. Carlton Curtis, Mrs. T. Richardson, Mrs. I. W. Hobson, Mrs.

Smythe, Mrs. J. W. Stow, Mrs. C. G. Ames, Mrs. Barry and 30 others.

[501] Rev. C. G. Ames, San Francisco; Mrs. S. S. Allyn, Oakland; Mrs. Sarah Wallis, Mayfield; Mrs. Bowman, Sacramento; Mrs.

Georgiana Bruce Kirby, Santa Cruz; Mrs. Fannie Kingsbury, San Diego; Mrs. Elmira Eddy, Nevada; Mrs. A. A. Haskell, Petaluma; Minnie H. McKee, Santa Clara.

[502] See Appendix to California chapter.