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

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments This book has taken me a very long time to write. But I could not have written it at all without the support of many individuals, families, communities, and institutions. I am solely responsible for the mistakes, errors in judgment, and other failings, but everyone mentioned (and many more) helped make this book possible. I could not have written a history of the California women’s movement without reading the materials that organized women left behind, a task enriched by the fact that in several cases I read materials still held by the original organizations. Esther Depew, president of the southern California Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, went out of her way to make sure that I had access to everything that I needed in the organization’s Los Angeles archives. The women of the northern California WCTU operated from a small o≈ce in Oakland, but Cynthia Nelson, their president, kindly made space for me in her cramped quarters. All the temperance women told me stories of their former leaders and past political successes, stories that still live for them. Club women were also generous. The late Margaret Grey of the Friday Morning Club in Los Angeles gave me access to the club’s archives (now housed at the Huntington Library). She shared with me her extensive oral history of the club and made me welcome in the clubhouse, which dates from the 1920s. I am sure that I first began to understand the relationship between club buildings and club life when she graciously gave me an extensive tour of the beautiful building. Mrs. Albert Crichton, president of the California x Acknowledgments Federation of Women’s Clubs, allowed me to read files at the federation o≈ce in Fresno; these are now held at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I also want to thank librarians and sta√ members at numerous research libraries, including the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley; the California Historical Society, San Francisco; the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University; the special collections sections at the University Research Library at the Green Library of Stanford University and at the Universities of California at Santa Cruz and Los Angeles; the California State Library, Sacramento; the Gilroy Museum, Gilroy; and the Huntington Library, San Marino. For their help in collecting pictures, I want to thank Ellen Harding at the California State Library, Emily Wolf at the California Historical Society, and Erin Wardlow at the Huntington Library; I especially want to thank Janet Soper, a graphic designer at Arizona State University, for her technical skills, which greatly assisted me in preparing the cartoons for publication. For her insistence that I must have pictures, I thank Vicki Ruiz. I want to thank several institutions for their financial support, which helped pay for research trips and gave me time to write: the women’s studies and faculty grant-in-aid programs at Arizona State University; the Summer Faculty Fellowship and faculty grant-in-aid program at Indiana University Northwest ; and the summer stipend program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Everyone at the University of Illinois Press has been immensely helpful. I do not know how to begin to thank Anne Firor Scott. Her long-term interest and her wise critiques have done much to strengthen this book and make it possible . Karen Hewitt is an ideal editor; she guided me through each step and kept me informed. Melanie Gustafson provided exceptionally insightful comments . I also wish to thank Theresa Sears and Polly Kummel for their patience and support. My ideas for this book first developed during graduate school at the University of California at Riverside. Hal Bridges, Carlos Cortés, Barbara Deckard, Bob Hine, and Sarah Stage taught me how to think critically about politics. Alice Clement, in her tutorials on American women’s history and in her leadership role in the West Coast Association of Women Historians, taught me about the meaning and craft of politics. Bob Chandler, a friend and fellow student at Riverside, continues to share with me his research in California history. The late Bonnie Gordon and I always shared notes about work and life; her humor and shrewd analysis made a great di√erence in my life. At a crucial time in my graduate career Estelle Freedman and her graduate Acknowledgments xi students at Stanford University welcomed me into their Women’s History Dissertation Support Group. Their...