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"Before going to Sacramento we were fond of laughingly asserting that it was the voice of the past which spoke to us from the anti-suffrage camp, but after listening to that voice in various committees and in the senate chamber itself, we heard the inflection of a deadlier voice than that—the sinister whisper of the special interests, of the powers that speak so stealthily as to be almost unnamable, are menacing not only woman's suffrage but men's suffrage as well—even the very principles of our democracy...What did one of their speakers mean when she said to the elections committee: 'We believe in the republican form of government; we believe that this government is still in an experimental stage and that we will awaken to find that we have opened the door of the franchise too wide?' We have come to belleve our fight is not alone for the privilege of the ballot in women's hands—we are fighting for manhood's suffrage, for self-government by all the people." [7]
Raised as a society girl in a high-status family, [8] [9] Sterry started her working life as a newspaperwoman, writing primarily for the Los Angeles Herald . [4] As one account put it, "Possessing a very engaging manner, combined with a forceful personality, Miss Sterry was a successful newspaper woman and journalist from 1910 to 1918." [10] According to 1911 west-coast media-industry scuttlebutt, Sterry was fired from the Los Angeles Tribune that year because her politics were Socialist and she supported Job Harriman's candidacy for L.A. mayor. [8] The L.A. Record reported the news with the comment, "Ruth Sterry is a newspaper woman and a capable one...Inasmuch as it is a matter of common knowledge that a number of the men employees of the Tribune are going to vote for Harriman, it is being asked if they, too, are likely to lose their jobs, or if this particular war is only on women?" [11] During World War I, Sterry did communications and publicity for the U.S. government, as well as volunteering as a nurse. [4] She was present at the 1920 Democratic National Convention. [12]
"SALUTATION"
Ruth Sterry (1913)Did you choose the journey, friend?
No, nor I;
But to make it cheerfully, Let us try.
When the day is dark, I pray,
Sing a song to cheer the way,
For tomorrow we will be
One day nearer to the sea.Did you choose the journey, friend?
No, nor I;
But we know the end will come
By and by.
All today we bear the load
Up the weary winding road,
But tomorrow we may be
At the Inn in company.
Around 1920 Sterry quit journalism, and she opened her own public relations and political advocacy firm. [4] [13] She described herself as occupied with publicity and advertising from 1918 to 1932. [10] Under the headline, "Women Should Know Who Pays for Influential Indignation," the Los Angeles Record editorial page asked in 1923, "What weight for instance would a speech by Miss Sterry against the water and power act have carried if it had been known that this clever young-lady had been paid $4019 by the corporations to do publicity organize the Women’s Tax and Bond Study clubs and 'generally circulate among the club women of Los Angeles and among the parent teacher associations?'" [14] In 1930 the L.A. Record described her as "one of the smoothest power trust propagandists in the city". [15] Sterry was also a founding director and organizer for Neutral Thousands, [16] a group of women that initially purported to promote "peaceful labor-industrial relations" [4] but later turned out to be an anti-union shill group funded by corporations. [17]
Sterry served for many years as a president of the Los Angeles Women's Political League. [3] The Women's Political League promoted female candidates for public office; other members of the group included Dora Stearns and Irene Martin Bowron, later First Lady of Los Angeles. [18] From January to June 1921 Sterry was a Los Angeles Parks Commissioner. [19] [20] [21]
Sterry wrote a number of poems that were published in magazines and newspapers; at least one of her poems was anthologized. [22] She was also said to have written articles and novels under a secret pen name. [4] In 1933 the Los Angeles Record reported Sterry was working on her second novel somewhere near the coast. [23] Sterry considered herself retired from the publicity business as of 1935. [10]
Sterry died of a heart attack in 1938 at the Los Angeles home she shared with her sister. [4] Ruth Sterry was a single mother by choice and was survived by her adopted son, Charles Churchill Sterry. [24]
Ruth McCormick, was an American politician, activist, and publisher. She served one term in the United States House of Representatives, winning an at-large seat in Illinois in 1928. She gave up the chance to run for re-election to seek a United States Senate seat from Illinois. She defeated the incumbent, Senator Charles S. Deneen, in the Republican primary, becoming the first female Senate candidate for a major party. McCormick lost the general election. A decade later, she became the first woman to manage a presidential campaign, although her candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, failed to capture his party's nomination.
Marie Caroline Brehm was an American prohibitionist, suffragist, and politician. The Head of the suffrage department for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), she was a key figure in the Prohibition Party and Presbyterian Church, active in both local and national politics, and an advocate of reform laws. Twice she was appointed by the President to represent the United States at the World's Anti-Alcoholic Congress in Europe. Additionally, she was the first woman to run for the Vice President of the United States after the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.
Robert Leicester Wagner was the editor and publisher of Script, a weekly literary film magazine published in Beverly Hills, California, between 1929 and 1949.
Proposition 4 of 1911 was an amendment of the Constitution of California that granted women the right to vote in the state for the first time. Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 8 was sponsored by Republican State Senator Charles W. Bell from Pasadena, California. It was adopted by the California State Legislature and approved by voters in a referendum held as part of a special election on October 10, 1911.
Norman Sedgwick Sterry was an American lawyer and football player. He represented movie stars and prominent persons as a lawyer in Los Angeles and successfully represented Major League Baseball in the case that resulted in the United States Supreme Court's exemption of baseball from the antitrust laws. As a law student at the University of Michigan, Sterry played at the halfback and end positions on the Michigan Wolverines football teams from 1900 to 1902.
Virginia Brissac was a popular American stage actress who headlined theatre companies from Vancouver to San Diego during the heyday of West Coast Stock in the early 1900s. An ingénue and leading lady known for her natural style and charm on stage, Brissac played with equal success in both comedies and dramas and went on to have a long second career as a character actress in film and television.
The 1924 Los Angeles pneumonic plague outbreak was an outbreak of the pneumonic plague in Los Angeles, California that began on September 28, 1924, and was declared fully contained on November 13, 1924. It represented the first time that the plague had emerged in Southern California since plague outbreaks had previously surfaced in San Francisco and Oakland. The suspected reason for this outbreak was a rat epizootic where squirrels that were found to be plague infected were secondarily infected by rats. Due to the evidence of infected squirrels near San Luis Obispo County as late as July 1924 and the migration habits of both squirrels and rats, it is thought that squirrels were the original source of the plague outbreak in Los Angeles.
Edith Monica Jordan Gardner was an American educator, specialized in history and an activist, including woman's suffrage and in the Sierra Club. She was president of the Southern California Social Science Association, Town and Gown Club, Cornell Women's Club of Northern California, Stanford Woman's Club, and the University of California branch of the Equal Suffrage League, among others. She was the head of the History Department at the John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, chairman of the Department of Legislation Oakland Forum, and one of the earliest members of the Sierra Club.
Alice Elizabeth Locke Park was an American suffragist and a longtime defender of women's rights. She served as associate director of the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Committee of California.
Women's suffrage, the legal right of women to vote, has been depicted in film in a variety of ways since the invention of narrative film in the late nineteenth century. Some early films satirized and mocked suffragists and Suffragettes as "unwomanly" "man-haters," or sensationalized documentary footage. Suffragists countered these depictions by releasing narrative films and newsreels that argued for their cause. After women won the vote in countries with a national cinema, women's suffrage became a historical event depicted in both fiction and nonfiction films.
This timeline provides an overview of the political movement for women's suffrage in California. Women's suffrage became legal with the passage of Proposition 4 in 1911 yet not all women were enfranchised as a result of this legislation.
The women's suffrage movement began in California in the 19th century and was successful with the passage of Proposition 4 on October 10, 1911. Many of the women and men involved in this movement remained politically active in the national suffrage movement with organizations such as the National American Women's Suffrage Association and the National Woman's Party.
Mabel Clare Deering was a San Francisco Bay Area socialite, journalist and supporter of progressive causes such as women's suffrage and the admission of black women to a national women's organization. As a University of California student, she protested the awarding of a medal for scholarship that was given to a man instead of to her.
Frances Borgia Jolliffe was an American actress, journalist, and suffragist, and arts editor at the San Francisco Evening Bulletin.
Beatrice Sumner Thompson (1874–1938) was an American suffragist and activist. She was executive secretary of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP from 1917 to 1925.
Mary Elizabeth Simpson Sperry, was a leading California suffragist. She served as president of the California Woman Suffrage Association in 1900-1907.
Rosalind Goodrich Bates was an American lawyer and clubwoman, based in Los Angeles, California. She was a trial attorney who practiced international law and served as a Judge Pro Tem in the Los Angeles Superior Court. She was a founder and president of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA).
Minerva Goodman was an American physician, suffragist, and clubwoman, based in Stockton, California.
The Los Angeles Record was a daily newspaper of the Greater Los Angeles area of California, United States in the first half of the 20th century. Associated with the Scripps chain of newspapers, it was founded on March 4, 1895. The Record was an evening newspaper, perceived to be politically independent, and its offices were on Wall Street for much of its 20th-century history. In the 1920s, the Record was one of six dailies competing for readership in the city. The newspaper ultimately developed a fairly populistic, working-class editorial approach that stood out amongst the city's dailies, especially compared to the arch-capitalist Los Angeles Times.
Nora Sterry was a teacher, school administrator, social worker, and public official in California, United States. She is best remembered today for her work during the 1924 Los Angeles pneumonic plague outbreak. Nora Sterry Elementary School in west Los Angeles is named in her honor.