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.

Celebrate 100 years of California women's right to vote!

Chicago Woman's Suffrage parade marching
costume, 1916.  Library of Congress.

California was one of the early western states that paved the way for the national amendment, and California's woman's suffrage amendment was passed on October 10, 1911 after many years of work and education on the part of the state's suffrage supporters.  This wonderful centennial anniversary is being marked all over the state throughout 2011, and the celebrations are especially numerous this month, the anniversary month of the event.  The South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild will be celebrating in San Jose this coming weekend!  Gentlemen and well-behaved children welcome to attend. 

Date: Sat., October 8; noon march, tea at 1 p.m.
Location: march from the Knox-Goodrich Building @ 1st and S. Santa Clara St.; tea at Satori Tea Bar in San Pedro Square.
Cost: $7 per person (for a "Votes for Women" sash and to pay our re-enactor); pay for your own tea and refreshments.
Suggested Costume: day dress from the 1840s through 1911, "suffragettes."

Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Dress: the background

Amelia Bloomer ca. 1850s.  Wikipedia.

During the 19th century there were many and varied reform movements that involved women.  Women supported and led those movements that dealt with things that were important to their everyday lives, like food, clothing, and education, which connected them to the larger Woman’s Suffrage reform movement, as well as the trend towards national and international religious, political and economic reform.  There was also a growing sense of distaste with the quality and style of things produced by the Industrial Revolution factory system, and the un-healthy living conditions it created. 

When the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848, the dress reform movement was just beginning, with Amelia Bloomer and other women daringly adopting Turkish trousers and shorter (ankle- to calf-length) skirts.  Many of their innovative designs and ideas were lost on the public who, with the help of the media, spent more time staring at and lampooning them than listening to them.  Early designs were almost all condemned as being not only ugly, but indecent because they involved masculine trousers.  The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood secured a nominally higher level of respect from the public for their designs, because they first appeared in romantic and dramatic pieces of art.  When the women who were part of the movement began to wear similar styles at home and in public, they attracted stares and comments, but escaped the kind of insults that earlier dress reformers received, because of their status as “eccentric artists” and their prominence in the art circles.  The famous artist William Morris said, “no dress can be beautiful that is stiff; drapery is essential,” and the Pre-Raphaelites took that statement to heart. 

To be continued ...