Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and Development of the California Women's Movement, 1880-1911

3. The Politics of Altruism: Rebuilding the California Women’s Movement,1897–1905

3 The Politics of Altruism: Rebuilding the California Women’s Movement, 1897–1905 For several years the 1896 su√rage defeat in California devastated the state’s su√rage movement. Su√rage organizations lost so many members that they were maintained by skeleton crews of stalwart souls. Other women’s groups were only minimally involved in public a√airs. Although organized women from around the state had discussed at the California Women’s Congresses in the mid-1890s whether to take up urban reform, only a few clubs had taken steps toward doing so by the beginning of the new century. The Women’s Congress itself did not live to see that century. Yet by 1906 organized women—in particular, club women—had enhanced their role in the public sphere and made their movement an influential force in urban public a√airs. Club women did not describe their activism as political ; instead, they referred to their program as ‘‘civic altruism.’’ In part, the women did this because they understood politics to mean partisan activities, and, like many other a∆uent white Americans of the era, they equated partisanship with corruption. Club women labeled their public deeds as altruistic to separate themselves from corrupt politics, to underscore that they were performing in public the same tasks of moral guardianship that they had previously done in private spaces. Club women chose the term civic to declare that they were building a new public space, a civic arena, in which citizens—women and men—concerned with the public good could build a moral, humane, harmonious America. The women saw themselves as engaged in a dual process, making themselves 108 Becoming Citizens civic persons—citizens—and creating a better society. The women defined citizens as those who were honest—no partisans allowed—and whose vision was not blinded by narrow opportunistic class interests. The best citizens, in other words, looked very much like the club women—white a∆uent folks from the ‘‘middle classes’’ who assumed that because they were white and neither extremely rich or poor, they could speak for all.∞ The women’s agenda was connected to their movement in historical time. As we saw in Chapter 2, they had lived through the tumultuous 1890s; they had witnessed the depression, tramps in the streets, and the flowering of radicalism, such as Bellamy’s Nationalism, populism, and the great railroad strike of 1894. For a time a significant number of influential women, including leaders of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, adopted socialist principles and tried to persuade their followers to join them; they envisioned a great movement of men and women that would come together and create the ‘‘Cooperative Commonwealth.’’ This proved unsuccessful. Most organized women did not want social revolution—no matter how peacefully and slowly it was promised to come about. Organized women were deeply distressed about the human su√ering, social ills, and urban blight that they saw all around them in an industrializing America; they were equally persuaded that they must make finding the solutions their responsibility, their ‘‘work.’’ Therefore they created their program of civic altruism. They made themselves mediators and saw themselves as crossing class lines (but seldom those of race) in order to achieve a more humane social order. As civic workers, they sought to make cities beautiful and the state more responsive to its citizens. Calling themselves ‘‘city mothers,’’ they intended to create a civic home that provided services—but not a cooperative commonwealth—for its members. Pursuing this course, organized women built a loose alliance between the women’s club movement and male civic leaders, ‘‘city fathers.’’ The groups had similar values. Many of these men worked hard at ‘‘improving’’ their cities, seeking to make them bustling places of business. The men believed, as did the women, that providing e≈cient public services and an aesthetically pleasing civic environment were steps that boosted their chances for financial success and made other significant contributions to civic life. Both the men and the women proudly saw themselves as ‘‘boosters,’’ as people who were building their city and state and who were doing more than that. As westerners they were attempting to fully incorporate their region into the nation and not as some quiet provincial backwash. By engaging in boosterism— supporting activities of great importance to male business elites—women The Politics of Altruism 109 became accepted influential...