How We Won the Vote in California.
Inscribed
[Suffrage]. Solomons, Selina. How We Won the Vote in California. A true story of the campaign of 1911. Cover design by Elmer S. Wise. [San Francisco]: The New Woman Publishing Co., n.d. [1912].
8vo.; illustrated wrappers, stapled. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
First edition of the only known first hand account of the California campaign for woman suffrage, including photographs of key players in the drama: Solomons, Lillian Harris Coffin, Clara S. Foltz, Rose M. French, Ellen Clarke Sargent, and Elizabeth Lowe Watson. Krichmar 1988.
Solomons (1862-1921), a daughter of Gershom Mendes Seizas Solomon (co-founder of Temple Emanu El in San Francisco and a direct descendent of Gershom Mendes Seixas), also published a suffrage play: The Girl from Colorado: or, The Conversion of Aunty Suffridge: a playlet with a purpose: in three acts (San Francisco: Votes-for-Women Pub. Co., 1911, Franklin 183). A rare book; to date we can identify no others.
A presentation copy, inscribed on the first blank: To John Swett: for half a century The Friend of Progress and Torch-Bearer to Truth—with warm regards of Selina Solomons. S.F. Jan 16--1913. Swett, acknowledged as the Father of Public Education in California, is credited with making schools free for at least five months each calendar year. Upon becoming superintendent of public instruction in 1863 he traveled throughout the state to assess public education, and devoted his term to eliminating the rate bills under which parents had previously paid tuition. Solomons notes the contribution to woman suffrage made by Swett’s daughter Emily, through her work as a pioneer woman journalist. Emily died in 1892, and never saw the outcome of her labors.
This is an extraordinary early recollection of woman suffrage in America, coming nearly a decade before the 19th Amendment in 1920. In 1911 California became the sixth state in the Union to guarantee votes for women when a 4000 vote majority secured the cause, the direct result of the labors of Solomons and her colleagues who had worked tirelessly to overcome the prejudice of male voters who equated woman suffrage with prohibition. The California vote proved a turning point in the national campaign, doubling the number of women’s votes in America and virtually guaranteeing that a nation-wide triumph was only a matter of time.
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