I discovered the numbers of California women running for office while browsing through the Government Documents collection as a graduate student at the University of California in Riverside. Already knee-deep in another research project, I came across a set of volumes of the Statement of Votes at Primary Election. Remembering family lore that my maternal great-grandmother was “the...

~“Someone has to make a start,” “Something new in candidates,” “I was the first,” “We felt like...

~Democrat Mary Ella Ridle of San Luis Obispo seized the first...

~Assemblywoman Cora Woodbridge of Placer County faced a tough reelection battle for her third term. First elected in 1922, she marshaled a new resource to win in 1926: incumbent assemblywomen. Incumbents generally carry political weight; they have name recognition, party support, campaign resources, and the credibility of experience from...

~Republican Clara Shortridge Foltz put to rest long-floating rumors about a woman running for governor of California when she put her name on the primary ballot of 1930. Already a woman of stature in California history, she extended her credibility as the first woman admitted to the California Bar and the first female Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles to her bid as the first woman for...

~Gertrude Clark of Amador County ran for Congress in perilous times. “On the shoulders of the women of the country,” she proclaimed as she campaigned in 1942, “rest the responsibility for the conduct of a winning war and the right kind of a permanent peace following the war.” With patriotic calls to duty filling the airwaves and dominating the press, she tapped into concerns of voters about World War II. Clark heralded the heroics of her son in the U.S. Navy to establish her patriotic credentials. She had made the ultimate mother’s sacrifice to her country: Her son was killed a year earlier in a plane crash. Campaign reporters noted his death, explaining that he was lost “in the Atlantic early in the present war in flying a torpedo plane to...

~When Helen Gahagan Douglas became the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1950, her campaign staff was ecstatic. We “were just riding high,” recalled Helen Lustig of San...

~As the only assemblywoman in the early 1960s, Pauline Davis learned how to work with male legislators. “I didn’t find it difficult,” she said about her singular status in a sea of men....

Marilyn Ryan, first elected to the State Assembly in 1976, proudly recalled the many ways she and her female colleagues challenged the male-centered culture of California politics. While in the members’ lounge of the state capitol one night “waiting...

Table A.1 California Women Elected to State and National Office (1912–1970)

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~Linda Van Ingen is professor of history and director of the women’s, gender, and ethnic studies program at the University of Nebraska, Kearney, where she has taught U.S. and women’s history since 2001. Her publications include articles in the Journal of Women’s History, History of Education...

Women in American Political History focuses on influential women throughout the history of American politics. From the Colonial period through the Founding up to the present, women often have played significant and meaningful roles in politics, both directly and indirectly. Many of their contributions have been overlooked. This interdisciplinary series seeks to advance the dialogue...