Room One

Mary McHenry Keith
The first female graduate of University of California Hastings College of the Law, and a founder of the College Equal Suffrage and the Berkeley Political Equality Leagues

"When [Miss Schlingheyde] called for the first subscription, Mrs. Keith rose in her place in the middle of the hall and quietly said: 'I'll give $500.' Things broke loose immediately. The applause was long and loud, and there was a craning of necks to see the woman who had such a purse."
— The Los Angeles Times (October 8, 1904)

Selina Solomons
Founder of the Votes for Women Club in San Francisco

"'The Girl From Colorado,' as Miss Solomons has entitled her work, is the first suffrage drama to have been written by the California advocates of political equality. A local plot and setting will make the play of keener interest to San Franciscans."
— The San Francisco Call (August 12, 1911)

Phoebe Hearst
First woman regent of the University of California, Berkeley

"I wish to acknowledge the pleasure it gave me at our recent Club meeting, when you told me that you favored 'Votes for Women.' Perhaps you do not realize how much it means to me, who have worked for it so long, to know that women like you are on our side."
— Letter from Mary Simpson Sperry to Phoebe Hearst (September 30, 1911)

Maud Younger
Founder of the Wage Earners' Equal Suffrage League for Working Women

"Seven million women in the United States daily leave their homes, forced to go out into the world and fight beside men for their living ... Her place of work should be sanitary, with protection for life and limb, yet conditions under which women work are only as good as they themselves can secure and maintain. In securing good laws, influence however sweet and gentle, is never so effective as votes. In State after State we find eight-hour laws for men in mines, smelters and public works; but the only eight-hour law, for women, outside California, are in States where women vote."
— "Why Working Women Should Vote" by Maud Younger

Elizabeth Watson
President of the California Woman Suffrage Association from 1909-1911

Ellen Sargent
Honorary president of the California Woman Suffrage Association

"The California Equal Suffrage Association, which has had so long and honorable a record for many years and in all previous campaigns in the state, and with which the names of Mrs. Ellen C. Sargent, Mrs. Caroline Severance, Mrs. John F. Swift, and other pioneers had been so closely identified, was fortunate in securing Mrs. Elizabeth Lowe Watson to lead it and the cause to victory."
— "How We Won the Vote in California" by Selina Solomons

Fannie McLean
President of the California Branch of the College and Professional Equal Suffrage League

"The aim of the College and Professional Equal Suffrage League is to further the interest in the Woman Suffrage Movement among both graduates and undergraduates. It is important that those who have not thought about this question should give the arguments, for and against, careful and unprejudiced consideration."
— California Branch: College and Professional Equal Suffrage League

David Starr Jordan
President of Stanford University and honorary president of the California Equal Suffrage Association

"Equal suffrage would tend to broaden the minds of women, and to increase their sense of personal responsibility. It may help to solve the problem of clean local government and make our cities centers of sweetness and light as well as of activity and strength."
— David Star Jordan in "What Men Say About Women"

Reverend Charles Aked
Minister of the First Congregational Church in San Francisco and speaker for the College Equal Suffrage League

"Nothing since the coming of Christ ever promised so much for the ultimate good of the human race as the intellectual, moral and political emancipation of women."
— Charles Aked in "What Men Say About Women"