When Marin County Voted Against Women’s Suffrage
By Robert L. Harrison
Women gained the right to vote in California on October 11, 1911, some nine years before the passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. That day the voters passed the women’s suffrage amendment to the California Constitution by a narrow 1.4% margin. The Marin County electorate and much of the Bay Area rejected the measure by significant margins.
The campaign for women’s suffrage greatly advanced in the last half of the 19th century. In 1848 a gathering of abolitionists in Seneca Falls, New York, including reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, was an important milestone in the road to suffrage. Its Declaration of Sentiments proclaimed “that all men and women are created equal” and should all have the right to vote.
For several years two organizations campaigned for women’s suffrage. The National Women Suffrage association under the leadership of Stanton and Susan B. Anthony worked to secure an amendment to the national constitution. The American Women Suffrage association aimed at getting amendments on a state-by-state basis. In 1890 the two organizations merged with Stanton as President. The same year Wyoming became a state and the first to sanction full women’s suffrage.
In California an 1879 petition was circulated to amend Article II of the 1849 Constitution to grant women suffrage. The Constitutional Convention later that year, with an all-male delegate body, rejected the amendment. In 1896 the issue was placed on a statewide ballot. The November 3, 1896 General Election resulted in a firm rejection of women’s suffrage, voting 45% yes to 55% no. The measure was opposed by some labor unions, conservative religious organizations and two important newspapers, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. It was believed votes were cast in opposition because some men feared that, with the approval of suffrage, women would vote to ban the sale of alcohol.
In the political arena, the Democratic Party failed to endorse suffrage while as early as 1894 the California Republican Party chose to support it. On April 25, 1891 the Marin County Tocsin, a Democratic leaning newspaper, printed an article from a London source mocking a meeting of the English Woman’s Suffrage League:
“Just when some fair orator was exercising to her full declamatory powers….a mouse was observed….The flow of eloquence was at once stopped….But when this mouse’s presence was supplemented by that of another, no more words were wanted: a rush was made for the door and the meeting broke up in ‘the greatest excitement.’”
The Tocsin reported the September 1896 visit of “Miss Susan B. Anthony” to Marin noting that her talk at the top of Mt. Tamalpais limited the ability of her audience to easily escape. The editor commented: “The Tocsin would not be so ungallant as to intimate that Miss Anthony had any need of such adventurous aids. She usually succeeds in inducing hearers to listen to her wherever they are.”
The measure was endorsed by the Marin Journal and the San Francisco Call. In an October 29, 1896 editorial the Journal opined: “We are for it [suffrage]. There is no valid objection to it. Miss Susan B. Anthony has given a long life to its advocacy and we hope she will live to see it triumphant.” The Call noted in a commentary on November 3, 1896: “Nor should it be Republicans only who vote for the amendment. The issue is one which appeals to the better instincts of men of all parties.”
Despite some endorsements, and a spirited campaign with local suffrage organizations holding meetings in several Marin towns, Marin County voted soundly against the measure with less than one-third (30.8%) of local voters supporting suffrage. The strong local opposition seemed somewhat unusual because the Marin electorate had a history of backing most recommendations rendered by the Republican Party.
In 1910 the California suffrage movement persuaded the legislature to add the question, “Should women be allowed to vote?” on the October 11, 1911 general election ballot. The suffrage campaign was better organized in 1911 than was the 1896 effort. Suffragists produced pennants, posters, playing cards and shopping bags. They employed electric signs, billboards and lantern slides to show their message at evening events. They presented their position before every category of civic or fraternal organization.
Bay Area suffrage leader Louise Herrick Wall noted the public attitude toward women voting was more “amused, indifferent and incredulous” than hostile. Wall joined with others campaigning in the “Blue Liner,” a 1910 seven passenger Packard touring car, used to carry the women to engagements. One such event in September 1911, the annual convention of the Native Sons of the Golden West held in Santa Rosa, was visited by as many as 10,000 people. Wall described it this way, “There was music and singing; and, as we had planned, hundreds of people sauntered in and out, and stopped and chatted or listened. One day we had a seven-hour continuous performance. In the evenings we held big street meetings from the Blue Liner….” The San Francisco Call noted, “The ‘blue liner’….will go down in history as the mascot of the California suffrage campaign.”
Following the 1896 election suffrage leagues formed in several of the Marin’s towns. The “Equal Suffrage League of San Rafael” with Vincent Neale as president was founded on May 26, 1911. According to the June 3rd Marin County Tocsin, “Mrs. Lucy Underwood McCann, a member of the Susan B. Anthony Club, roused the [League] audience to real enthusiasm…” The Suffrage Club of Mill Valley sponsored a float in the Fourth of July parade. The Marin Journal supported women’s suffrage and ran an “Equal Suffrage” column in each edition for four months beginning in June.
The Marin County Tocsin in its September 2, 1911 edition reported that women’s suffrage was opposed at a meeting of the San Rafael auxiliary of the Northern California association. The reasons why some opposed suffrage were expressed in the Marin Journal of October 5th. The primary arguments against suffrage were that it would destroy traditional home life and it was known that women voting elsewhere had not improved the quality of government. It was claimed that most women opposed the measure because it would rob a woman of “…..her most priceless natural endowment, viz, those of modesty, reserve and womanly dignity, and serve to coarsen and cheapen her.”
The Los Angeles Times again added its voice to the opposition. In its September 22, 1911 edition the editor opined: “Possession of the ballot….will invade the home and destroy its charm.” Democratic Party opposition was forcefully expressed by State Senator J. B. Sanford, Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, when he called women’s suffrage a “disease”, a “political hysteria”, a “cruel and intolerable burden”, and a “backward step in the progress of civilization.” Many in the saloon and liquor business continued to oppose the measure.
On Election Day the measure was soundly defeated in Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda Counties. The Marin vote was 1,101 yes and 1,550 or 58.5% no, one of the largest margins rejecting the measure by any county. Together the four counties turned down the measure by a 40% yes to 60% no vote. Suffrage won elsewhere in the remainder of the Bay Area and in Los Angeles. Several days later when all of the rural votes were counted women’s suffrage had passed statewide by just 3,587 votes, a margin of 1.4%. The total vote count was 125,037 yes and 121,450 no.
While increasing women’s representation in government is an ongoing task, women’s suffrage has come a long way from its early struggles. The first female Vice President was elected in 2020. Approximately one-third of the California Legislature is female. Women are the majority on the Marin County Board of Supervisors. The mayor and four of five council members in Marin’s two largest cities, San Rafael and Novato, are women. In the 2020 presidential election it is estimated that women cast 2 million more votes than did men. And yet the Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed by the National Women’s Party in 1923, has never been ratified.
