History Corner

100 yrs. ago today, California made a move toward actual democracy.

Created by artist Bertha Margaret Boye for the 1911 California campaign, this is probably the most popular poster produced during the American suffrage movement. Boye’s design, featuring a draped western suffragist posed against the Golden Gate as the sun sets behind her, won first place in a contest sponsored by the College Equal Suffrage League in San Francisco. The image was later reproduced on cards, fliers and publicity stamps.

The poster’s vibrant colors and evocative imagery helped draw attention to the suffrage measure, which was one of 23 propositions on the ballot. For an entire week in August, stores in San Francisco featured the colorful poster in their windows, often accompanied by festive decorations in suffrage yellow, which supporters referred to as "the color of success."

When male voters went to the polls in California in 1911, one of the questions on the ballot was: Should women be allowed to vote? The issue of woman suffrage was being raised across the country and 5 states, all in the west, had approved the radical and controversial idea.

NB that it was in the West where this first happened, Eastern Elitists.

Just before the election, 10,000 people gathered for a final "monster rally" in San Francisco, which was followed by fireworks and a band concert. But on Election Day, October 10, 1911, the measure was soundly defeated in the San Francisco Bay Area and just barely passed in Los Angeles. Disheartened and disappointed, suffragists began to plan yet another campaign when late reports from the far flung counties began to swing the vote in their favor.

When the long count was finally completed several days later, Equal Suffrage had passed by only 3,587 votes – an average majority of one vote in each precinct in the state! The final tally was 125,037 to 121,450. As suffragists had hoped, work in the rural districts successfully overcame the more organized opposition in the cities. With the passage of votes for women in California, the number of women with full suffrage in the U.S. doubled, and San Francisco became the most populous city in the world in which women could vote.

Note also that San Francisco (Stupid hippies!) was against, while more civilized Los Angeles was for.