Modesto Suffragettes Were Leaders By Maree Mundelius August 23rd 1970 Fifty years ago, women were taken from their status of legal idiots and given the right to vote when the 19th amendment was officially proclaimed a part of the United States Constitution. But nine years earlier in 1911, women of California had been granted suffrage through a state constitutional amendment. The 1910 election in Stanislaus County was depicted this way: Both men and women gathered at the polling places, the men to vote and talk and women to feed the men and also talk. But the election of 1911 with the suffrage amendment on the California ballot saw women fighting to gain votes in their favor. Automobiles with women chauffeurs were reported seen around the city on that October day, carrying to the polls voters favoring the suffrage amendment. Modesto Leads The amendment did pass in Modesto and California, although early reports listed it defeated, thanks to the block voting of the saloon men in town. But the women of the town waited for the final result and discovered Modesto one of the states leading towns in suffrage. This came as little surprise to the women, for they had in their midst for a number of years Jennie Phelps Purvis, a suffragette who began her campaign for the vote in the 1860s. She was the wife of Richard B. Purvis, local sheriff from 1884 to 1906 and was among the first organizers of the Womens Christian Temperance Union in the county. Mrs. Purvis was in on the organization of the states first womens suffrage association during the 1880s in San Francisco. During the election of 1911 she was chairman of Stanislaus and Merced Counties for the passage of the suffrage amendment. So active was she in distributing literature that the supply ran out before the election. Arrived In 1863 After coming to California via the Panama Canal in 1863, she lived in the bay area and contributed to news-papers and magazines throughout the United States. She wrote under the pen name of Hagar and her literary work brought her in close contact with Bret Harte, Mark Twain and Joaquin Miller. Her suffragette work, which began when she was 14, brought her in touch with Susan B. Anthony and other nationally known figures. The citizens of Modesto rallied to the defense of the suffrage amendment in 1911. In a letter to the editor one citizen listed these reasons why women should have the vote: Women are better educated and read more they will not wear the party yoke, men vote as women do, not women vote as men do, women have a better civic consciousness, they would vote and see that men did too, women would be as potent in politics as they are in religion and by far the best reason is that a normal woman recognizes in the saloon her natural enemy. If only for this, if not other reasons, give her the ballot. One man informed Modestans that politics was no place for a woman. He received a prompt answer via the paper. The kind of politics we have at the present needs women. It needs thousands of them, each with a can of cleaning powder and a large can of chloride of lime to cleanse and disinfect the political mess that is now and has been in existence for years. Following the election Mrs. Purvis wrote a letter to the editor noting that it would ably be some time before the women in Stanislaus County fully realized what was done for them in the October election. She then thanked the men for their votes granting that the franchise is a right and not a privilege, an inherent right which no person or class should have the authority to give to another. The women of Stanislaus County began to register as soon as was legally possible. The first, Mrs. W. S. Bowker, registered Republican, but a majority of women registering in those first days listed the Prohibitionist Party as their choice. Impact Felt The immediate impact of the election was felt not by the women but by County Clerk Benson who discovered some changes had to be made in the registering procedure. Against the wall in office was a marker for height, but Benson discovered it was not low enough when a young woman lacked a good three inches of reaching the point, where the marker began at five feet. Perhaps one of the more far reaching effects of locally giving women the right to vote was that they could also become members of the California State Legislature. Esto Broughton, a native Modestan, was elected as a representative of the Forty-Sixth Assembly in 1918. She particularly interested herself in matters pertaining to irrigation and drew up the power bill allowing irrigation districts to develop electric power in connection with Irrigation projects.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 04:21:31 +0000
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