Votes for Women LONG BEACH

The City of Long Beach, California has a very special place in the history of American Suffrage.

While the Federal Amendment did not pass until 1920, the pioneering women of California earned the vote in October, 1911.  

Women in the east had nearly begun entering the public sphere but the Women of the Wild West had been forging across the country, wearing pants, and imagining women leading the way.  

The principal gatherings were through Women’s Clubs.  As varied as the women themselves; farming, sewing, teaching, arts, etc.  Hundreds of women’s clubs formed, and their umbrella association was the California Federation of Women’s Clubs.  

On May 17, 1911, the annual California Convention of Women’s Clubs met in Long Beach at the Hotel Virginia.  Their nearly unanimous vote of 300 delegates represented over 25,000 members statewide. The agenda was set and within the talents and skills these women went home and transformed their clubs into the retailing of Suffrage.  VOTES FOR WOMEN appearing on food packaging; tea to cheese; on handkerchiefs to valentines; on sashes and hats. Fliers were tossed from hot air balloons and biplanes.

CALIFORNIA WOMEN WON THE VOTE 9 years before the passing of the Constitutional Amendment.