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A "Test of Chiffon Politics": Gender Politics in Seattle, 1897-1917

Author(s): John Putman

Source: Pacific Historical Review , Nov., 2000, Vol. 69, No. 4, Woman Suffrage: The View from the Pacific (Nov., 2000), pp. 595-616

Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3641226

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A "Test of Chiffon Politics":

Gender Politics in Seattle, 1897-1917

JOHN PUTMAN

The author is a member of the history department at San Diego State University.

In the fall of 1910, when Seattle voters went to the polls, these men no doubt passed working-class residents stumping on behalf of the United Labor Party. If they paid any attention, Seattle voters would have likely heard about capitalist oppression and demands for the exclusion of Japanese workers from the city. Yet the United Labor Party and its Democratic and Repub- lican opponents did not have the street to themselves. Voters could not have escaped the posters, or the banners, or the pres- ence of numerous women distributing handbills with "VOTES FOR WOMEN" spelled out in large letters. While most male vot- ers turned a deaf ear to the anticapitalist rhetoric, they did heed the pleas of Seattle women and granted the women of Wash- ington suffrage.1

The 1910 fall election signaled a turning point in Seattle's political evolution. Although voters defined the limits of Pro- gressivism by overwhelmingly rejecting the highly charged class rhetoric of organized labor, they did not wish to backtrack or

1. This paper is derived from my dissertation entitled, "The Emergence of a New West: The Politics of Class and Gender in Seattle, Washington, 1880-1917" (University of California, San Diego, 2000). The author would like to thank the many members of the "Woman Suffrage in International Perspective" panels at the 1999 Pacific Coast Branch-American Historical Association annual conference for

their insightful comments and inspiring presence.

Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 69, No. 4, pages 595-616. ISSN 0030-8684 @2000 by the Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association. All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223. 595

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596 Pacific Historical Review

close the book on Progressive reform. While they repudiated politics in which organized labor defined the issues, voters ac- cepted a more inclusive political environment by providing women greater access to public life than was the case in all but four states in the union. Nevertheless, organized labor and Seat- tle suffragists recognized in the first two decades of the twenti- eth century that their dreams for a better future were linked. Unable to fashion a class-based political movement, labor lead- ers increasingly turned toward middle-class women as potential allies. Likewise, suffragists recognized that any chance to gain the ballot rested on securing working-class support. Class preju- dices, however, were difficult to overcome. A cross-class alliance

would have been quite difficult to forge without a strong, shared interest; working-class women quickly emerged as this bond. This nexus of class and gender politics momentarily but pro- foundly redefined Seattle's political landscape early in the twen- tieth century.

Most recent studies of woman suffrage in the United States have concentrated on the national effort to secure a

constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote. Most correctly note that nearly all the western states granted women the franchise several years before the passage of the Susan B. Anthony amendment, but few scholars have sought to explain why these state campaigns succeeded. Furthermore, the political activity of these newly enfranchised women has re- ceived scant attention. Washington state, especially its largest city, Seattle, offers an illuminating case study for both the ef- fort of western women to obtain the ballot and the ways that gender shaped local politics after the 1910 statewide suffrage campaign. Seattle actually witnessed two successful woman suffrage crusades. In the mid-1880s, male political leaders granted women the right to vote for more than three years, un- til Washington's territorial Supreme Court revoked the privi- lege. The 1910 campaign was the first suffrage victory of the twentieth century; several neighboring states quickly followed suit. Washington's early suffrage triumph also offers scholars the opportunity to explore how enfranchised women both viewed and used the ballot and how this changed local and statewide politics.

After losing the vote in 1887, Seattle suffragists tried to

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 597

regain it in two unsuccessful statewide referenda.2 Forced to re- think their strategy and wait for a more propitious time, middle- class women built the foundation of the 1910 suffrage campaign through the club movement. Women's clubs not only helped construct communication networks but also encouraged women to expand their horizons beyond the home. Troubled by the so- cial deterioration accompanying Seattle's rapid growth after the 1898 Alaska gold strike, clubwomen set out to improve condi- tions in the city. In the early 1900s, the local Young Woman's Christian Association (YWCA) helped working women by pro- viding lunchrooms and employment services. The organization also appointed a full-time matron to protect young women at the city's train depot. By 1905 Seattle's middle-class clubwomen joined with the head of the waitresses' union, Alice Lord, to lobby for the eight-hour day for women workers. This budding cross-class alliance was a crucial step toward equal suffrage. In 1909 the favorable environment for which suffragists had waited nearly a decade materialized. Growing concern about prostitu- tion and its negative impact on the city's image erupted into a full-blown political crisis and quickly thrust woman suffrage into the forefront of public debate.3

Seattle stood at the center of Washington's suffrage move- ment. The election of Emma Smith DeVoe as the president of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association (WESA) in 1906 marked the beginning of the successful 1910 campaign. One of DeVoe's great strengths was her ability to exploit the diversity of both her followers and their ideas. "Unity in Diversity" emerged as the theme of the Washington campaign. Just as Aileen Kra- ditor outlined in her study of national suffrage ideology, ar- guments for both inherent rights and political expediency

2. A study of a similar suffrage struggle in the late nineteenth-century trans- Mississippi West is Michael Goldberg, An Army of Women: Gender and Politics in Gilded Age Kansas (Baltimore, 1997).

3. Dora P. Tweed, "Woman in Club Life: Her Duties and Responsibilities," The Washington Women, n.d., and The Clover Leaf June 1899, both in Accession 3463-10, box 4, Federation of Women's Clubs: Seattle Federation District, Manuscripts and Archives, University of Washington, Seattle; Western Woman's Outlook, Dec. 21, 1911; Seattle YWCA: Annual Report, 1901-1902, p. 7; Seattle YWCA: Annual Report, 1903-04, p. 8. For a study of the evolution of clubwomen's social and political activities, see Karen J. Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined, 1868-1914 (New York, 1980).

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598 Pacific Historical Review

dominated Seattle's campaign. In an article in Votes For Women, a local suffrage magazine, Mrs. George Smith invoked both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to sup- port her claim of equality with men. Yet, a few paragraphs later, she stated that "women are different from men in aspirations, needs, and point of view," proceeding to argue that enfran- chised women would use their unique abilities to cure the ills that plagued the city.4

Ideological inconsistency was one of the strengths of the movement. Both Seattle suffragists and state leaders recognized that victory depended upon convincing a diverse population. Not only did they have to incorporate women of all classes and ethnic groups into the movement, but they also had to tailor their arguments to appeal to a similarly diverse male electorate. No single argument or idea could sway all voters to break with tradition and grant women the right to vote. Thus the Seattle Suffrage Club offered not one but a score of reasons to extend the franchise to women. Opponents might successfully combat one particular argument, but they could not deflect such a multi- front assault.

Though many of the ideas and arguments espoused by Seattle and state suffragists differed little from similar debates throughout the nation, they did add a particular regional flavor. In the inaugural issue of Votes For Women, the editor proudly pro- claimed the "Spirit of the West." Freedom, she argued, "has al- ways come out of the West-the West which has always been peopled by those free souls who gladly gave up the luxuries of the East in order to escape its slavery." The editor concluded with the hope that the West would grant equal opportunity to all and that this would be "washed back over the East with the re-

turning tides of humanity." This idea that the American West was special or exceptional was pervasive among suffrage lead-

4. Aileen Kraditor, The Ideas of Woman Suffrage, 1890-1920 (New York, 1965), chapter 3; Alice M. Smith, "Why I Believe in Political Equality" (1901), Alice Smith Papers, Accession 4155, box 5, Manuscripts and Archives, University of Washing- ton, Seattle; Votes for Women, May, Oct. 1910; Cora Smith Eaton King, "History of Washington Suffrage," folder 29, box F, Emma Smith DeVoe Papers, Washington State Library, Olympia; "The Seattle Suffrage Club Offers A Score Of Reasons Why Women Should Be Enfranchised," Accession 123, box 2, Nellie M. Fick Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, University of Washington, Seattle.

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 599

ers.5 In Washington they understood the power of this line of thought and made sure to include women in this image of the West. They often paid homage to female pioneers who "helped win the West" and maintained that the present generation was "winning not only the West, but helping to win all the land to freedom, to right and justice." DeVoe declared that the response to women's call for political equality "came from the broad- shouldered, big-brained men of our great Northwest who made good their popular Western phrase 'A square deal for men must be accompanied by a square deal for women.' " Soon after Wash- ington men passed the 1910 suffrage law, one female observer noted that men had accepted the presence of women in politics partly because western men did not want "to be considered out of date in this part of the world."6

Such regional appeals point to one other way suffrage forces employed the West in the debate over the ballot. Propo- nents of the equal franchise not only played upon the sense of competition between West and East but also encouraged an intra- regional rivalry. Suffragists outlined the benefits the ballot had produced in the four western states where women already voted. Votes For Women, for example, claimed that property values in these four states jumped by 37 percent to 160 percent, while Cal- ifornia, lacking woman suffrage, had witnessed less than a 3 per- cent increase.7 Not so subtly, suffragists also suggested that Washington would remain inferior to these four smaller states. An advertisement in Votes For Women declared: "WOMEN VOTE

5. Votes For Women, Oct. 1909, Dec. 1910. For more on the West in the Ameri-

can mind, see Richard White, "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New His- tory of the American West (Norman, Okla., 1991), 57-58, 612-629. Many westerners believed that one of the special or unique qualities the West possessed was a pen- chant for reform, or what many at that time referred to as Progressivism. In a speech before the King County Political Equality Club in 1909, Professor Edward McMahon of the University of Washington made an urgent appeal to western set- tlers to grant women the franchise. He stated that they must hasten reforms "be- fore we are swamped by conservative settlers from the East." Votes for Women, Jan. 1910.

6. Votes For Women, Dec. 1909, Jan. 1910; Emma Smith DeVoe, "What Next?" Nov. 1910, folder 20, box 1, DeVoe Papers; Western Woman's Outlook, Jan. 1912, p. 5. An additional argument suggested that equal suffrage would aid women in pro- tecting the special privileges, like liberal community property laws, that western men had provided women in the region.

7. Votes For Women, June, Oct. 1910.

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600 Pacific Historical Review

FOR PRESIDENT AND ALL OTHER OFFICERS IN WYO-

MING, UTAH, IDAHO, AND COLORADO. WHY NOT IN WASHINGTON? ARE THE WOMEN OF THOSE STATES

MORE WORTHY OR ARE THE MEN OF THOSE STATES

MORE JUST?"8 Good ideas alone, suffrage leaders perceptively recognized,

would not result in equal suffrage. Suffragists had to walk a fine line because some tactics tended to alienate voters and under-

mine their efforts. Just like national leaders, suffrage workers in Seattle and the state searched for methods that best fit the sen-

sibilities of local residents. The key to victory, it seemed, lay in making personal contact with voters and various organizations and in avoiding large public demonstrations that might provoke a reaction by opponents, especially the liquor industry. In the campaign's early months, suffragists simply attempted to draw attention to the amendment. In the long run, they came to un- derstand that success depended on convincing large numbers of women to join their effort. Women not only could help sway their voting husbands but also were needed to spread the mes- sage and keep the issue alive in the twenty-month campaign. Scheduled less than four months after the legislature authorized the suffrage amendment, the upcoming Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYPE) in Seattle seemed to suffrage leaders a unique opportunity to launch the campaign.

The AYPE offered suffragists a public stage from which they could build the necessary momentum. DeVoe and other officials invited several national women's organizations to hold their an- nual conventions at the exposition. Both the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the National Coun- cil of Women came to Seattle in the summer of 1909. National

suffrage activists, including NAWSA president Anna Shaw, made quite a splash on their way to Seattle by organizing a whistle-stop campaign from one end of the state to the other. The conven- tions sparked enthusiasm among women attending the exposi- tion and attracted substantial local press coverage. However, relations between state and national suffrage leaders soured soon after the convention. When an untimely dispute between two suffrage camps in Washington surfaced during the annual

8. Ibid., Oct. 1909.

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 601

convention, NAWSA officials fired DeVoe, a paid national orga- nizer, for her handling of the problem. No longer financially tied to NAWSA and now free to ignore its eastern-based leader- ship, DeVoe and other suffrage leaders were able to tailor both the campaign's strategy and message to their particular North- west audience.9

Throughout the summer and fall of 1909, Seattle suffrage leaders continued their outreach to women. While articles in

newspapers or traditional campaign literature attracted some fe- male support, suffragists tried more innovative ways to get their message out. Mrs. George Smith of Seattle, for example, hosted a "suffrage tea" in her home; others held card parties or put on plays and balls to attract younger women into the movement. The WESA published a special cookbook, entitled Votes For Women: Good Things to Eat, which helped bridge the public and private spheres with political messages sprinkled among recipes. Suffragists opened up the 1910 campaign with a special "Woman's Day" at a county fair just outside Seattle. Following speeches by DeVoe and Marion Hay, the state's governor, women staged a parade at the fairgrounds, complete with a spe- cial suffrage float. While suffragists had avoided public demon- strations during the earlier battle in the state legislature, leaders recognized that, to achieve victory, they now needed both to arouse more women to the cause and capture the votes of men. Hence, reflecting the intraregional rivalry theme, the suffrage float carried six women, four representing the "free" western states where women already voted, another the state of Wash- ington, and the last depicting the "Goddess of Liberty" who stood ready to remove the shackles from Washington women.10

9. 41st Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Seattle, Washington, July 1-6, 1909, in Seattle AYP Exposition Miscellany (1909), Pacific Northwest Collection, University of Washington, Seattle; Clarence Bagley, History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time (Chicago, 1916), 495; Seattle Post-

Intelligencer, June 30, 1909. 10. On the social activities, see Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 23, May 27, 1909;

Adella M. Parker note in folder 29, box 5, DeVoe Papers. On the cookbook, see Washington Women's Cook Book (Seattle, 1909), Seattle Public Library; King, "History of Washington Suffrage," 7. On the various suffrage activities at the fair, see Votes For Women, Jan. 1910; Letter to Women of Washington from Emma Smith DeVoe, n.d., folder 21, box 1, DeVoe Papers. On other activities, see Votes For Women, Jan., Feb., Dec. 1910; letter to Mrs. Baker (no author), Oct. 28, 1908, folder 2, box 1, De- Voe Papers; The Patriarch, Oct. 22, 1910.

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602 Pacific Historical Review

While such tactics helped attract women to the movement, suffrage leaders also employed more traditional political meth- ods to swell WESA's ranks and, perhaps more importantly, gar- ner male support for the amendment. Suffrage leaders adroitly exploited the press. Virtually every newspaper in the state car- ried news of the campaign, and WESA's publicity bureau ran "Suffrage Columns" and "Suffrage Supplements" in many of the state's largest papers. One observer estimated that suffrage ac- tivists put out more than one million pieces of literature over the two-year effort. Without a doubt, the most important paper to champion equal suffrage was Votes For Women. Published by Mrs. M. T. B. Hanna of Seattle, the monthly periodical-the only suffrage journal on the Pacific coast-filled its pages with articles, speeches, cartoons, and even advertisements that ex- tolled the benefits of equal suffrage. The paper proved a valu- able asset, not only permitting suffrage officials to shape and disseminate arguments in favor of the ballot, but also acting as a direct, unobstructed conduit between WESA leaders and the rank and file.'1

Suffrage leaders borrowed strategies from male-dominated political campaigns while adding a few of their own. Following the example of Seattle businessmen who used billboards in their successful campaigns, Washington women papered the state with large posters and billboards. WESA leaders likewise recog- nized the importance of political alliances with certain key or- ganizations, in particular, organized labor. DeVoe and other officials spoke at union meetings, underscoring the benefits of the equal franchise to the working class. They argued that labor should support woman suffrage because millions of working women needed political power to defend themselves. Receptive to these arguments, Seattle's Central Labor Council supported the ballot campaign through numerous articles and editorials in the weekly labor paper, the Seattle Union Record. Suffragists also recognized the importance of stirring ethnic working-class women to pressure state legislators. WESA leaders, for example, urged ethnic women to write to their local Norwegian or Finn- ish societies to encourage them to join the movement.

11. King, "History of Washington Suffrage," 7-10; Bagley, History of Seattle, 494; Votes For Women, Jan., Oct. 1910.

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 603

This support notwithstanding, suffrage leaders believed face-to-face campaigning was the key to victory. DeVoe ordered followers throughout the state to canvass each precinct to de- termine support for the amendment. With this information, leaders could shift resources to areas where they faced stiffer re- sistance. The success of this approach, however, rested entirely upon women. Female activists did the precinct-by-precinct can- vassing, and the wives, daughters, and sisters of male voters who opened the doors provided the responses. The network of women's clubs significantly aided this effort. In 1907, for exam- ple, local women's clubs had formed a correspondence network by dividing the various clubs scattered throughout the city into precincts and districts to facilitate a city beautification plan for the upcoming 1909 AYPE. This earlier effort paid off hand- somely in the battle for the ballot. Not only did women canvass their neighborhoods in the weeks before the 1910 election, but on the day voters went to the polls, Cora Eaton coordinated a precinct-level picketing campaign. As captain of Seattle's third ward, she sent letters to fellow picketers explaining how best to approach male voters. From precinct canvassing to the use of billboards, suffrage leaders thus demonstrated their clear un- derstanding of the techniques of local and state politics.12

The campaign intentionally soft-pedaled what women would do with the vote. Seattle suffrage leaders avoided directly mixing the ballot with politics or other reforms. While their rhetoric may have emphasized cleaning up the city, they rarely addressed specific concerns like prohibition or prostitution. Nevertheless, the emerging social-political movement we call Progressivism no doubt aided their success. Many voters in Seat- tle connected the franchise for women with political and social reform. Westerners, in the end, envisioned "votes for women" as

not simply an aspect of the region's political culture but as an

12. DeVoe to Suffrage Co-Worker, July 22, 1910, folder 17, box 1, DeVoe Pa- pers; Cora Eaton to Fellow Campaigner, Oct. 31, 1910, Emma Smith DeVoe Scrap- books, vol. 7, Washington State Library, Olympia; Seattle AYPExposition Scrapbooks, Vol. 2 (Jan. 1, 1907-June 27, 1907), Pacific Northwest Collection; King, "History of Washington Suffrage," 6; Abigail Scott Duniway, Path Breaking: An Autobiographical History of the Equal Suffrage Movement in Pacific Coast States (1914; New York, 1970), 242; Seattle Union Record, July 9, 1910; form letter from DeVoe (1910), folder 20, box 1, DeVoe Papers; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 28, May 16, July 11, 17, 1909.

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604 Pacific Historical Review

effective political instrument, like the recall or direct primary, in achieving other goals.13

Immediately following the successful vote for woman suf- frage in the 1910 election, Seattle's residents discovered how enfranchised women would change local politics. The first few years following the suffrage victory were critical. Feminist lead- ers understood that newly enfranchised women not only had to prove themselves but also that most female voters had to undergo a rapid politicization. The increasing political tension surrounding the local vice industry provided the setting for vot- ing women's first political venture. A crusade to recall Mayor Hiram Gill immediately captivated female voters. Large num- bers of citizens blamed the mayor and his lenient vice policy for tarnishing the city's image. Newly enfranchised women formed a separate "Woman's Campaign Committee" for mayoral chal- lenger George Dilling. Committee leaders claimed that their initial meeting was the "first of its kind ever held on the Pacific Coast" and the largest gathering of women ever held in Seattle. In the following weeks, thousands of women eagerly registered to vote in the February 1911 recall election.14

Weeks before that election, a popular local newspaper de- clared that female voters had to prove that equal suffrage was deserved. The turnout by more than 20,000 Seattle women and the successful recall of Mayor Gill, McClure's magazine pro- claimed, "must be regarded as a triumph for woman's suffrage." Newspapers throughout the nation, and even Gill himself, attributed the recall to the large number of women voters. The return of "Gillism" in the 1912 municipal elections again put women voters on trial. Not only was the political reputation of Seattle's female population at risk, a local magazine warned, but

13. Votes For Women, Dec., Oct. 1910. One suffrage leader, Adele Fielde, was also a key advocate of direct legislation. One of the major reformers in Seattle, Joe Smith, spoke to the WESA in 1907 on direct legislation and suffrage. He argued that direct legislation and woman suffrage were closely related because both sought to expand political participation and provide the people more control over their government and society. See his speech before the Washington Equal Suffrage As- sociation, folder 6, box 10, Joseph Smith Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Uni- versity of Washington, Seattle.

14. Votes For Women, Jan. 1911; New Citizen, Feb. 1911; "To the Women of Seat- tle from Mrs. Thomas F. Murphine," Woman's Dilling Campaign Headquarters, n.d., folder 1, box 8, Smith Papers.

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 605

suffrage efforts in other states also hinged on this "test of 'chif- fon politics.' " The city's second repudiation of Gill, the Literary Digest noted, confirmed women's contributions to American pol- itics. Passing these tests signaled the dawn of a new political era in Seattle and greatly aided suffrage efforts throughout the nation.15

Seattle's highly charged elections on the heels of the suf- frage victory no doubt hastened the politicization of the city's female population. In her study of women's political activity fol- lowing the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Kristi Anderson has argued that partisanship and political par- ticipation were learned responses. Women, she maintains, "were not merely unpracticed at voting or unsocialized"; rather "they had grown up learning that women were by nature unsuited to politics, that by definition politics was a male concern" (empha- sis added). Women thus had not only to renegotiate gender boundaries but also to learn new habits. Female activists in Seat-

tle clearly understood this dilemma. Within months of acquir- ing the vote, women undertook to educate and politicize the large number of female voters who had not participated in the suffrage campaign. Not only did the Dilling campaign commit- tee reflect this goal, but several new women's magazines also sur- faced in the city to direct the political activities of local women. Club meetings, a New Citizen editorial declared, were no longer the "gossipy affairs they used to be." Leaders and magazine edi- tors urged women to study the issues and candidates, claiming that if they refrained from partisanship they would hold the "balance of political power."16 The emphasis on nonpartisan- ship, however, indicated that women were not becoming politi- cized in traditional ways. Both reflecting and contributing to the demise of nineteenth-century partisanship during the Progres-

15. Town Crier, Nov. 12, 1910, Jan. 14, 1911; Votes For Women, Jan. 1911; Western Woman Voter, Feb. 1911; Literary Digest, 44 (1912), 577. An attorney from nearby Snohomish also recognized Seattle's women as the key to George Cotterill's victory. See John Miller to George Cotterill, March 6, 1912, folder 17, box 5, George Cot- terill Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, University of Washington, Seattle; Burton Hendrick, "The 'Recall' in Seattle," McClure's Magazine, 37 (1911), 647-649.

16. Kristi Anderson, After Suffrage: Women in Partisan and Electoral Politics before the New Deal (Chicago, 1996), 68-69; New Citizen, Feb. 1911; Western Woman's Out- look, Feb. 1911.

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606 Pacific Historical Review

sive era, women helped transform the political process by con- tinuing to stand outside traditional party politics.17

The female press was not alone in encouraging the politi- cal solidarity of Seattle women. In 1911 a delegation of Seattle women had met in Tacoma with women from the other equal suffrage states to form the National Council of Women Voters, electing Emma Smith DeVoe president. The organization out- lined its plan to "educate women voters in the exercise of their citizenship" and to aid other suffrage campaigns. In a similar vein, the activists who operated Votes For Women now formed and housed a Women's Information Bureau in the magazine's of- fices. Like the successful suffrage campaign, many of these ed- ucational efforts initially emphasized political issues associated with the home and children. Yet, at the same time, some female

activists espoused clearly feminist ideas, ranging from urging women to keep their own names in marriage to reclaiming their rightful role in governing society that they believed men had wrongly usurped. The seemingly contradictory nature of these ideas is not difficult to understand if one considers the rapid pace of social and political change in the early twentieth cen- tury. As Paula Baker has argued, politics and the public sphere had been regendered during this era so that more women had come to believe that nothing in society was unrelated to the home and family. Sophie Clark, president of the Women's Leg- islative Council of Washington, put it succinctly: "the state is sim- ply the larger family." For the women of Seattle, however, this change was even more dizzying, and references to traditional notions of gender likely helped to ease this transition. While women's actions accelerated the pace and extent of social change, their rhetoric of home provided reassurance that they and the world around them were not spinning out of control.18

17. Paula Baker, The Moral Frameworks of Public Life: Gender, Politics, and the State in Rural New York, 1870-1930 (New York, 1991), 78-79; Michael McGerr, The De- cline of Popular Politics: The American North, 1865-1928 (New York, 1986).

18. On the formation of the National Council of Women Voters, see James H. Brady, Governor of Idaho, to W. H. Foster, Jan. 6, 1911, folder 4, box 4, DeVoe Papers; Letterhead of National Council of Women Voters, folder 7, box 4, ibid.; Western Woman Voter, Jan. 1911; Duniway, Path Breaking, 241-250. The National Council merged with the National League of Women Voters in 1920 and became the Washington State League of Women Voters. Some suffrage clubs, including the Seattle Suffrage Club and the College Suffrage League at the University of Wash-

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 607

The political issues women confronted illustrate the breadth of their political activity in the 1910s. A few months af- ter Gill's recall, the Seattle Union Record observed that women's

organizations were "taking a deep interest in the affairs of the city." These city affairs went well beyond better-known concerns like playgrounds, juvenile courts, and reform schools. Women's magazines like the Outlook entered the debate over public or municipal ownership of key services, such as the local telephone system, streetcar operations, and the city's port. Female activists urged local officials to undertake a general financial audit. They investigated and discussed the 1912 Erickson Charter Amend- ment that would have instituted the single tax.19

State politics also attracted the interest of many women. The direct legislation movement, for example, received a boost from women's organizations that viewed the initiative and ref- erendum as continuing the expansion of democracy that had begun with equal suffrage. The Women's Legislative Council of Washington supported numerous measures, including a public marketing bill that would have permitted Washington cities to own and operate utilities engaged in marketing and distribution

ington, also shifted their focus to educating new voters (Western Woman Voter, Jan. 1911). Other cities in Washington witnessed similar educational groups formed in the year following suffrage victory as well. Tacoma (and Seattle) formed Voter Ed- ucational Associations, while in Spokane women formed a new club for the non- partisan study of local, state, and national politics. See Western Woman's Outlook, Jan. 4, 1912; New Citizen, Feb. 1911; Legislative Federationist, Nov. 1916, May, Dec. 1917; Paula Baker, "The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Soci- ety, 1780-1920," American Historical Review, 89 (1984), 620-647. By 1918 the Feder- ationist changed its name to the Legislative Counsellor and became the official voice of the Women's Legislative Council of Washington. See Legislative Counsellor, April 1918, for a review of the first annual convention of the statewide council. Sophie Clark's feminist sentiments filled her speech at the convention. Not only did she emphasize the importance of children, but she also questioned the homemaker's absence from the census department's listing of occupations and society's devalu- ation of housework performed inside the home. An editorial in the Western Wo- man's Outlook, July 18, 1912, held a slightly different view of the state, arguing that it was "to become both more paternal and maternal."

19. Seattle Union Record, May 27, 1911. For evidence of women's interest in lo- cal politics, see Western Woman's Outlook, Jan. 11, 18, 25, May 9, 23, 1912; Feb. 6, 13, Sept. 11, 1913, May 21, 1914; New Citizen, March 1911; Western Woman Voter, March 1911, Jan. 1912; Report to the Port Commissioner of Seattle, Washington, ca. 1915, folder 19, box 2, Seattle Port Commissioner Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, University of Washington, Seattle. Women also discussed the promise of the Panama Canal (Western Woman Voter, Jan. 1912).

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608 Pacific Historical Review

of fuel, food products, and other commodities. The council also formed committees to study and discuss conservation, equal rights, prisons, Americanization, and the rights of labor. Some women scrutinized the gender discrimination inherent in many state laws. Striking at the heart of a legal system that discrimi- nated against women, the Western Woman Voter called on Wash- ington state officials to clarify a law that held that, if a person was killed by the wrongful act of another, "his heirs" could sue for damages. The magazine noted that some judges construed "his" not to include women and had denied heirs of widows

standing in court.20 The one major exception to clubwomen's nonpartisan

political policy occurred during the 1912 national election that pitted the two traditional parties against Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party. Enthusiastically endorsing the Progressive Party, the Western Woman's Outlook argued that the new party was so unique that it could not be branded with the "domain of po- litical interest." It was, instead, part of a grand "social and moral renaissance." 21

The largely middle-class women's clubs also engaged issues of concern to labor. Building upon cross-class relationships forged early in the suffrage struggle, clubwomen joined Seattle working women and Seattle Central Labor Council officials to pass both the 1911 eight-hour day and, two years later, a mini- mum wage law for female workers. Years of close contact in an era conducive to social reform especially strengthened trust be- tween middle-class and working-class women. Over the next few years, these women continued to cultivate this relationship. The suffrage movement's intense focus on women and their place in American society helps explain the strength of this cross-class gender alliance. In February 1911 the New Citizen, for example, urged its readers to use their new political power to make the city a better place. "Women must help each other," the maga- zine cried out in large bold print; "the under-paid, over-worked

20. Legislative Counsellor, April, May 1918; Western Woman's Outlook, Feb. 13, 1913; Washington Women's Legislative Counsellor Yearbook, 1917-18, Pacific Northwest Collection. On the legal issue, see Western Woman Voter, Feb. 1911. Even the more conservative Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs discussed a resolu- tion in 1911 favoring world peace and urging that nations limit armaments. Math- ews, "History of Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs," 39.

21. Western Woman's Outlook, Aug. 22, Sept. 5, Oct. 17, 1912.

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 609

women need help." Throughout the pages of the New Citizen, the Western Woman's Outlook, and other magazines, editors and columnists maintained that most women worked for wages "out of necessity not choice." They therefore urged all women to support their working-class sisters. The Washington State Fed- eration of Women's Clubs, the Seattle YWCA, and many other women's groups established industrial or labor committees that studied and reported on the relationship between capital and labor, especially as it affected women. Both the King County Legislative Federation and the Women's Legislative Council of Washington-two largely middle-class female organizations that promoted a feminist agenda at the state capitol-included working-class women in their meetings and committees. The lat- ter group went as far as to incorporate equal pay for equal work in its "Declaration of Principles."22

At the 1913 annual convention of the Washington State Federation of Labor, delegate Alice Lord introduced a resolu- tion demanding a state minimum wage for women. Clubwomen quickly joined with her and the Seattle Central Labor Council in support of Lord's argument that sacrificing the honor of working women was not worth the material benefits new man- ufacturing operations might bring to Seattle and the state. A few months later, state officials formed the Industrial Welfare

Commission (IWC) to study, recommend, and enforce a mini- mum wage for women.23 Within three years of the suffrage vic-

22. New Citizen, Feb. 1911; Western Woman's Outlook, Jan. 4, July 4, 1912, Sept. 4, 1913, Jan. 1, 1914; Legislative Federationist, Nov. 1917; Washington Women's Legislative Counsellor Yearbook, 1917-18, 16; Kathryn Oberdeck, "'NOT PINK TEAS': The Seat- tle Working-Class Women's Movement, 1905-1918," Labor History, 32 (1991), 197.

23. Reports of the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, 1912-15, 4452, 4457, 4462-4463, 4467-4469, 4473, 4486. The several industrial conferences, how- ever, dealt much more with the spending habits of working-class women than the morality of a minimum wage. The nine representatives of the Manufacturing Con- ference, for example, investigated everything from the price women paid for un- dergarments to the costs of amusements. They then submitted what each believed were the annual costs of working women's basic needs. The employer representa- tives submitted the lowest average. The IWC conferences offer a glimpse into both middle-class and employer perceptions of working women. In one conference, for example, employer representatives suggested that most women workers lived at home or received subsidized housing from local charities, like the YWCA. The de- bate over housing costs aptly illustrates the lack of understanding of many em- ployers and middle-class residents about the daily lives of working-class women. While a YWCA room might offer some advantages and savings, for many women workers it also meant a loss of independence and pride.

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610 Pacific Historical Review

tory, working women in Seattle and the state had obtained some of the best working conditions in the entire nation, as noted ap- provingly by national reformers like Florence Kelley. The pas- sage of the IWC and the minimum wage in 1913-1914 thus marked the pinnacle of the alliance that organized labor and middle-class women had forged a few years earlier. This success- ful alliance contrasted with the experience of California, where the greater strength of organized labor permitted both male and female union leaders to oppose a similar Industrial Welfare Commission on the grounds that the new government agency might intrude in the collective bargaining process.24

The success of these efforts rekindled working-class wo- men's political activism, especially the Seattle Women's Card and Label League. Just as organized labor helped shape the de- velopment and agendas of women's political organizations, these organizations alerted male labor leaders to the potential power of an organized and vigorous working-class women's movement. The turning point, according to historian Kathryn Oberdeck, was the 1910 suffrage campaign. Prior to that, the Union Record had generally portrayed working-class women as "gentle label-buying helpmeets or endangered maidens plead- ing for a shorter day." Once all women had the ballot, the image of working-class women was transformed into astute, politically minded citizens. In this new light, the Label League soon ex- panded its activities and ideas beyond the quiet housewives who aided labor behind the scenes through consumption. A revived and energetic Seattle Women's Card and Label League distrib- uted petitions, debated the meaning of the Russian Revolution, and formed a separate women's labor federation to encourage female unionization. Together, then, enfranchised women and organized labor stood as the vanguard of Progressive reform in Seattle.25

In the half-decade after winning the vote, Seattle women

24. On California, see Rebecca J. Mead, "'Let the Women Get Their Wages as Men Do': Trade Union Women and the Legislated Minimum Wage in Califor- nia," Pacific Historical Review, 67 (1998), 317-347.

25. Oberdeck, "'NOT PINK TEAS,'" 203-205. On organized labor, gender, and consumption in the post-World War I period, see Dana Frank, Purchasing Power: Consumer Organizing, Gende, and the Seattle Labor Movement, 1919-1929 (New York, 1994).

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 611

thus cultivated an alliance with organized labor that began to re- shape local politics. In the 1911 municipal elections, the editors of the Western Woman Voter enthusiastically endorsed a working- class candidate, Robert Hesketh, in his race for a council seat.

He received the magazine's backing not only because he sup- ported the eight-hour day for women but also because the edi- tors believed that labor had a right to a council seat. In 1912 the middle-class women's magazine, Western Woman's Outlook, cham- pioned a local bill to provide a municipal lodging house for the growing number of unemployed men in Seattle. Moreover, middle-class political activists demonstrated their left-leaning at- titudes by favorable public pronouncements on socialism and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In the 1912 Seattle mayoral race, for example, in which the Socialist Party candidate fared quite well in a highly competitive primary, the Western Woman's Outlook maintained that the eventual victor, George Cotterill, received a great deal of socialist support. "Every pro- gressive, intelligent person," the magazine declared, "believes in socialism." When violence broke out during an IWW strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Seattle's women's magazines sided with the workers.26

Local and national strikes, however, tested this support for the working class as Progressive middle-class women struggled to reconcile their class sensibilities with sympathy for Seattle's working class. Beginning in 1914, growing class tensions-a re- sult of worsening economic conditions, employer recalcitrance, and the growth of radicalism in some unions-soon vitiated the political alliance between clubwomen and working-class leaders. Moreover, a devastating battle over prohibition significantly af- fected gender politics in Seattle. Not only did many middle-class women find themselves opposing organized labor by favoring the successful state alcohol amendment, they also lost control of their most important magazine, the Western Woman's Outlook. The leading champion of prohibition in a city where the major dailies led the charge against the initiative, the Outlook was a magnet for the hostile liquor industry. Just over two months be- fore the fall election, agents of the saloon interests, using some

26.. Seattle Union Record, April 1, 1911; Western Woman Voter, Jan. 1912; Western Woman's Outlook, Feb. 29, Nov. 24, 1912.

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612 Pacific Historical Review

rather shady methods, reportedly had acquired control of the magazine. Lawyers, with the aid of funds from the Liquor Deal- ers Political Association, apparently manipulated the finances of the Outlook corporation and then seized control. Once the pride of female activists-because the magazine was owned and oper- ated by women-the Western Woman's Outlook passed into the hands of its enemies. Disillusioned with the divisive campaign, the Seattle Federation of Women's Clubs elected a new presi- dent who vowed to keep the clubs out of politics because it had brought much "discredit" on clubwomen.27

World War I struck the final blow to Seattle's cross-class Pro-

gressive alliance. The hyperpatriotism and antiradical environ- ment that the war fostered left those on the political left, including politically active women, vulnerable. Symbolic of this was the recall of school board member Anna Louise Strong in 1918. Less than two years earlier, Strong, a close friend of orga- nized labor, had been the darling of middle-class feminists. The Seattle WCTU and Mothers' Congress Parent-Teachers' Associ- ation, for example, applauded her victory. In a congratulatory missive, Eva Richardson proclaimed her success "[m]omentous because it... prove[d] to Seattle women what may be accom- plished when they [stood] together even though the strong arm of the press [wa]s against them." Within months of America's entrance into World War I, such adulation had dried up.28

During her short stint on the school board, Strong had drawn the wrath of business elites and clubwomen for both her

public sympathy for the IWW following the infamous Everett

27. Welfare: A Journal of Social Progress (Nov. 1913) , 7; Legislative Federationist, June 1917. The Legislative Federation remained one of the few largely middle-class women's organization to continue its support for organized labor into the early years of World War I. On the prohibition struggle, see Western Woman's Outlook, May 21, Sept. 3, 1914. According to the Outlook, liquor interests had used "pseudo club women" to misrepresent the paper to advertisers and encouraged boycotts of the magazine in order to force a change in its editorial policy. Eventually, these liquor interests had apparently purchased a debt the magazine had with a local printer as a way to control it. For more, see Western Woman's Outlook, May 9, 1912, Aug. 16, 1914.

28. Anna Louise Strong, I Change Worlds (1935; Seattle, 1979), 51; Petition and newspaper letter found in folders 98-99, box 7B, Anna Louise Strong Papers, Manuscript and Archives, University of Washington, Seattle; Della Wood Manney to Anna Louise Strong, Dec. 13, 1916, folder 84, box 7B, ibid.; Ada C. Caufield to Strong, n.d., folder 74, ibid.; Mrs. Dis Richardson to Strong, Dec. 4, 1916, ibid.; Eva H. Richardson to Strong, Dec. 3, 1916, folder 91, ibid.

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 613

Massacre and her support of two labor radicals charged under the repressive Espionage Act. Before President Woodrow Wil- son's call for war, most clubwomen had opposed the prepared- ness campaign in Seattle and its schools. In 1915 the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs (WSFWC), for example, passed a resolution urging President Wilson to keep the nation out of the European conflict. After Congress declared war in April 1917, most middle-class clubwomen quickly abandoned their earlier peace initiatives and threw their full support behind the nation's new crusade. In a WSFWC Bulletin editorial, fed-

eration officials announced that they stood firmly behind the President. Months later, the peace chairperson of the state fed- eration, Mrs. William Goodyear, argued that clubwomen must remain loyal to the government and not comfort the enemy by criticizing its actions. In no uncertain terms, she declared that each woman was either with or against the United States, for there was "no middle ground."29

While many clubwomen cautiously questioned the gov- ernment's tepid concern for the dangerous moral climate sur- rounding army bases, demanding that politicians curb "the moral and physical contamination, which [clubwomen] fear more than bullets," they could not countenance Anna Louise Strong's antiwar activities. Clubwomen apparently did not see this contradiction. Perhaps they believed that maintaining a moral climate around the army camps would, in fact, aid the fighting effort-that wholesome soldiers would fight better and demonstrate the superiority of American culture as the nation made the world safe for democracy. In this regard, Strong's op- position to the war threatened the entire crusade. The Seattle

29. Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs, Bulletin, Aug. 1917, May 1918; "History of the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs, 1909-1929," 57-59, folder 11, box 1, Federation of Women's Clubs' Papers, Manuscript and Archives, University of Washington, Seattle; National League for Women's Service: Washington State Report for 1917-1919, Pacific Northwest Collection; 34th Annual Re- port of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of West Washington (1917), ibid.; Twenty- Second Annual Convention of the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs: Program (June 4-8, 1918), Federation of Women's Clubs' Papers. Philip Foner, in Women and the American Labor Movement: From World War I to the Present (New York, 1980), 33, has noted that even the largely middle-class women leaders of the national Women's Trade Union League, following the U.S. declaration of war, abandoned pacifism and opposition to military preparedness and urged full support for the war. They did so despite the significant antiwar sentiment among women workers.

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614 Pacific Historical Review

Federation of Women's Clubs, the University Women's Club, and the Parent-Teacher Association all joined with the Munici- pal League in backing Strong's recall. The Recall Committee charged that her antiwar activities, public support for accused labor radicals, and sympathy toward the IWW demonstrated her disloyalty and warranted her removal from office. "The people of Seattle," the committee concluded, "do not want anyone in charge of their public schools who is not entirely in accord with America and Americanism." Where just two years earlier many middle-class women had celebrated Strong's victory as a giant step for the women's movement, this attack on her character left Strong, in her own words, "much disgraced in the eyes of all nice ladies." Despite backing from organized labor, voters re- called her from the school board in early 1918.30

Strong's tribulations in the 1910s perfectly symbolized the class and gender tensions that plagued Seattle during the trans- formative years of industrial capitalism. Her election to the school board reflected the steps women had taken in the previ- ous decade. Combining exceptional insight into the inner work- ings of local and state politics with a rhetoric that exploited regional rivalries, suffragists successfully secured a constitutional commitment to political equality. Strong was a beneficiary of this triumphant crusade. The equal franchise regendered the public sphere, allowing her to move comfortably between Seat- tle's middle-class clubwomen and its working classes. Other middle-class women chose less intimate relations with the work-

ing class but continued to refigure both the public sphere and power relations within the city. Strong, however, publicly and un- apologetically challenged the acceptable norms of both her class and gender during World War I. The response of the city's "better sorts" to her outspoken politics only pushed her further leftward. By 1919 Strong emerged as the leading spokesperson for the Seattle General Strike. Over the next several decades she

continued her radical odyssey by participating in the early

30. On clubwomen concerns about vice, see Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs, Bulletin, Aug., Nov. 1917. On the recall, see Strong, I Change Worlds, 62-64; Strong to Leonard, March 9, 1918, folder 10, box 3, Strong Papers; "Why Annal (sic) Louis (sic) Strong Should Be Recalled" and "'Dear Friend' letter from Recall Committee," Pamphlets by and about Anna Louise Strong concerning her recall as a member of the Seattle School Board, Northwest Collection, Seattle Public Library.

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Woman Suffrage in Washington 615

development of the Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union and finishing as an "honorary red guard" during China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

The celebrated trials, federal government raids of IWW meeting halls, and Strong's recall signaled the beginning of the first Red Scare in Seattle. In a few short years, Seattle's political environment had been turned on its head. The events of the

previous few years had so deeply polarized the city that the once powerful and vibrant labor-feminist coalition no longer existed. Most middle-class Progressives recoiled as a more militant work- ing class insisted on asserting its vision of Seattle. Moreover, the super-patriotism evoked by the war provided middle-class re- formers with a much less threatening cause than refashioning the city's social and political hierarchy. Those like Strong, who resisted or objected, were quickly shoved aside. Organized la- bor, the other half of the middle ground, had generally viewed earlier reform efforts not as an end but a beginning of a new Seattle. The city's changing economic climate and stiffening em- ployer resistance together dashed labor's dream to build upon these earlier reforms.

The demise of Seattle's labor-feminist coalition by the end of World War I not only signified the end of the city's progres- sive spirit but also closed the door on the first chapter of equal suffrage. Suffragists' political sagacity, cross-class alliances, use of regional appeals, and the context of Progressivism help explain the success of the 1910 equal suffrage campaign in Washington state. Female voters in Seattle then entered the political fray and transformed politics in the decade that followed. However, the cross-class alliance that clubwomen forged with organized labor, initially founded upon a shared concern about the plight of working women, slowly collapsed under the weight of class con- flict. Ironically, just when women nationwide gained the ballot with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, many Seat- tle women turned away from the political activism of the prewar years. By the 1920s voting women narrowed their focus to vice and more traditional female issues. Moreover, female activists no

longer enjoyed access to the important women's magazines that had politicized female voters and cultivated political awareness. Working-class women likewise engaged less in electoral politics and, in order to protect labor's interests in the class-conscious

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616 Pacific Historical Review

postwar years, increasingly severed their ties with middle-class clubwomen. In short, Seattle women did maintain a political voice in the 1920s, yet it was weaker, less organized, and more narrowly focused. Nevertheless, the politics of gender had for- ever transformed Seattle's political landscape and would con- tinue to help redefine gender relations in the decades that followed.

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Figure 2. Emma Smith DeVoe of Washington. From the Photo Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, Washington.

Figure 3. Liu Wang Liming of China (listed as Mrs. Herman C. E. Liu). From Who's Who in China. Fourth Edition (Shanghai, 1931).

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