100 years of voting rights for California women!

South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild celebrating the Woman's
Suffrage Centennial at Satori Tea Bar!

San Jose joins the rest of California in celebrating an important milestone: the centennial anniversary of women being granted the vote in California!  In 1911 the Women’s Suffrage Amendment was finally passed by both houses of the California Legislature, and it was signed into law on October 10, 1911 by the governor, under the eye of Clara Foltz, the first female lawyer on the Pacific coast of North America, who lived and practiced in San Jose.

The work began in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, along with other female American delegates to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, were not allowed to sit in the convention hall and participate, because of their gender.  They realized the many similarities between the conditions of racial slavery and gender inequality, and resolved to address the issue on their return to the U.S.