Freeman Art Company from Humboldt County Historical Society Collection 
Bushnell photo published in the Sunset Journal, 1902. In 1896, Laura Lyon White went to work for the first campaign in California for women's suffrage, and was the leader of the 41st Assembly District Club. After the proposition for women's suffrage failed, Laura Lyon White decided that suffrage was too radical, and it's time had not yet come. She pivoted to less divisive, yet still effective tactics. She instead founded the California Club, a women's civic club that ultimately was instrumental in the preservation of Muir Woods. While internally the California Club favored suffrage, the organization did not fight for it. The woman's suffrage movement and forestry movement dovetailed together and amplified in unison. Many women first entered the political world through civic action like city beautification, or fighting for the preservation of places like Muir Woods. This cultivated leadership skills, helped women find confidence in their voices, and helped the public as a whole trust that women were indeed capable of civic duties. 
NPS “It took courage in those days to speak on suffrage at every gathering where opportunity offered; to distribute literature at public meetings and clubs; on trains and streetcars; to put up posters; to speak from automobiles in little towns; to wear suffrage badges and to engage in conversation on the subject with friend or stranger wherever that timely word would count.” - Elizabeth Kent Elizabeth Kent was a conservationist, suffragist, and an important part of the history of Muir Woods. She organized and protested in order to gain the right for women to vote. After incredible work and effort, California gave women the right to vote in 1911. After this win, she moved to Washington DC to fight for suffrage nationally. She lobbied, spoke and was arrested twice in her work for suffrage. Elizabeth Kent did great work to give women the right to vote. She was one of many inspiring and incredible women who took on the fight for suffrage. Women who inspired Elizabeth Kent or who fought for people Kent would not. All of these women advocated for their communities and did what they could to uplift others. 
Bain News Service, Collections of the Library of Congress. Jane Addams was a reformer, a pacifist, a suffragist and an American Hero. She founded the Hull House in Chicago with her partner Ellen Gates Starr. The Hull House was a settlement house, a safe place for new immigrants to stay and flourish. She was a prominent voice in the Progressive Era and spoke passionately in support of suffrage. She even helped to influence the Kents, the family that owned Muir Woods at the time, to become more progressive. Jane Addams and her new life partner Mary Rozet Smith ran the Hull House together for 30 years and this was Addam’s most proud endeavor. Her influence and reach as an advocate for all people earned her a Nobel Peace Prize. Jane Addams also spoke out about environmental health concerns and was adamant about every person's right to a healthy and safe environment no matter their income or ethnicity, making her an early advocate for environmental justice. 
Library of Congress. Sojourner Truth was an abolitionist, suffragist and American Hero. When speaking at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, she asked the room of mostly White women, “Ain’t I a Woman?” After escaping from slavery, Sojourner Truth spent her the rest of her life fighting for the rights of African Americans and women. She fought for the right to vote and was a strong advocate for prison reform. Click the link to learn more about this American 
Ida B. Wells was a civil rights advocate, suffragist and American Hero. She fought for Black women to have the right to vote and organized women in her community to become politically engaged. She was asked to march in the 1913 Suffrage Parade with other suffragists from Chicago, but they told her to walk in the back of the parade because she was Black. Instead of giving in to this act of racism, Ida B. Wells waited on the sidelines until her group came up and stepped into the front of the parade.She worked tirelessly to end lynching, segregation and to guarantee Black women’s right to vote. 
NPS Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was a surgeon, a suffragist, and an American Hero. Even though she was denied commission because she was a woman, she served during the Civil War as an unpaid surgeon and won the Medal of Honor. She was an early advocate for women to have the right to vote and testified in the US House of Representatives for this fight. She spent her life rejecting restrictive gender norms and wore “men’s” clothing her entire adult life. She opened her home up to others who were arrested and excluded because they dressed differently than there assigned gender. 
Photo by Gertrude Kasebier, 1898. Smithsonian Institution. Zitkala-Ša was an advocate for suffrage, a powerful voice for Native Americans, and an American Hero. She was a member of the Yankton Dakota Sioux. She was kidnapped by missionaries and taken to a residential school for forced assimilation. Leaving the experience with conflicting feelings, she spoke out against Native American boarding schools and worked to preserve Native culture. She fought for voting rights for Native Americans, strongly believing in suffrage for all Native people. 
Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Mary Church Terrell was a suffragist, civil rights leader and American Hero. She was a founder of the NAACP. Terrell was an educator, supporting education reform and increased support for segregated schools for students of color. After loosing a friend to a lynching mod, she became a fierce advocate for anti-lynching policy. Mary Church Terrell was present at the 1913 Suffrage Parade and strongly believed that all women should have the right to vote. 
Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Nannie Helen Burroughs was a leader in Black women’s and girl’s education, a suffragist, and an American Hero. Nannie Burroughs was denied employment in public schools because of colorism. She decided to start her own school. She worked hard to raise money and volunteer support from her community, feeling it was important for Black people to invest in their own futures. She founded the National Training School for Women and Girls. She taught her students the importance of suffrage and everyone having the right to vote. 
: Records of the U.S. Civil Service Commission. National Archives, St. Louis. Marie Louise Borrineau Baldwin was an advocate for the preservation of Native culture, a suffragist, and an American Hero. She spent many years working for the federal government with the Office of Indian Affairs and refused to assimilate despite pressure. She spoke out in support of women's suffrage and marched in the 1913 Suffrage Parade with other lawyers. She spent her life fighting for Native women and preserving Native traditions and culture. 
Los Angeles Public Library Tye Leung was a civil rights activist and suffragette from San Francisco! She was the first Chinese woman to be employed by the federal government at Angel Island Immigration Station. She then became the first Chinese American woman to vote. Because of her interracial marriage, both she and her husband lost their federal jobs. She was known in her community as an advocate for women and the disenfranchised. 
Library of Congress Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to congress, a strong advocate for human rights, a suffragist, and an American Hero. Jeannette Rankin joined the suffrage movement and traveled to many states lobbying for women's right to vote. She was beloved as a public speaker. She was the first woman elected to the House of Representatives and was even elected before all women had the right to vote. She never married and had close relationships with other women. She was a firm believer in pacifism, voting against war even if it cost her re-election. 
Library of Congress Rose Schneiderman was a labor movement leader, a suffragist, and an American Hero. Rose Schneiderman was born in Poland to a Jewish family and immigrated to the United States in 1890 and worked in garment factories in New York. She fought for labor unions and became a leader in this movement. Rose Schneiderman never married and had close relationships with other women in the labor movement. She was the only woman on the labor advisory board for the New Deal. She went on a speaking tour for women's suffrage and served as the secretary of The New York State Department of Labor. 
Dolores Huerta is an organizer, a suffragist, a believer in non-violence, and an American Hero. She helped to create The United Farm Workers of America and started voting drives for farm workers. She believes in non-violence and pioneered the need to see intersectionality in resistance movements. To this day her organizations continue voting drives for Latina women in California. She won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work in human rights and suffrage.
All of these women have made incredible contributions to this country and to guarantee the rights of all people to be able to vote. There is still work to be done and even more people that need to be honored. To learn about more suffragists in history, check out: 20 Suffragists To Know for 2020.
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Last updated: October 8, 2020