This documentary traces Nevada County's 1850–1910 era, showing frontier women shaping a volatile community through independent ventures—salons, boarding houses, baking, lodging, and retail—amid danger and improvisation, while noting the economy's inclusion of prostitution and licensed brothels and calling for a broader, more inclusive history that acknowledges racial and Indigenous realities. It then maps the suffrage arc from Seneca Falls through the 19th Amendment (1920), highlighting the 1869 split between conservative and radical camps, wartime protests and leadership, and the drafting of the amendment by Aaron Sargent, before ending with ongoing battles over rights, Prohibition, and a call for continued participation and new female leadership.

Full Transcript of the Video:

You
You
You
My dearest Aaron
Remember the enchantment we experienced when we first arrived in Nevada County?
Life in the Goldfields lacks certain shall we say creature comforts
But we found a place here you and I and together we made a home.

I
Hope those who follow us
Remember well how challenging life could be in this land so far from our beloved Massachusetts
Especially for our sisters in suffrage
Because as you well know
despite the hardships
It was the hands of women that made this place
1850 to 1910 is a massively long period of time in which there were huge changes in women's lives
Very few women first came in 1850 there
It was mostly all men for at least the first five years the women who did come
were amazingly
self-confident and
Self-driven and not anything like the idea that you would think of a woman at that time
Eastern women were completely different, but the women who came West
Were thrilled to be able to kind of have their own lives, which they had not had in the East in 1849
Only 2% of the population were women
And
As late as 1860 women were still only 19%
So that's kind of a shocking ratio when you think about life on
The frontier and the kind of women the single women who were attracted to the West.

They were pretty tough
Ellen Clark Sargent who arrived in Nevada City in 1852
Was not among the many uneducated single women who sought financial gain here
She was well off.

She was married comfortable financially and her life was not typical here for the time
the very first night she arrived in Nevada City, they were on a on a buckboard or something like that and
She looked up at the sky it was nighttime
And she saw the moon filtering through the trees and she smelled the smell of the pines and she said something to the effect of
I have never seen anything more beautiful in my life and
Other women wrote about the freedom they had
in the outdoors and
they would
plant gardens and and they would talk about some of them wrote about how much they enjoyed the sound of the
Thousands of birds that were here then and how much they enjoyed spring in Nevada City and
Grass Valley later with the flowers on the hill the wild flowers and all so
Their lives were different, but they were richer in many ways, but some of the women's publications back east kind of expressed that
they weren't so sure about life on the West and they were quote fearful of the trouble men might get into without the
civilizing influence of women and
Some of these publications actually encouraged morally-minded women to travel West to tame these men
But
Understandably few and answered the call
There's another woman her name.

She was very good friends with Ellen Sargent.

Her name was Emily Rolf
She arrived in
1852 I think with her husband who had come ahead mind and then gone back to get her
So when she arrived
Her husband had had built a home for them
Basically a woodhouse and he had had someone come in and paint and wallpaper
well, the people who had lived in the house before were miners and
Miners to put it kindly
We're not very fastidious and so the painters when they came in and the wall papers.

They just covered everything
so when Emily got there
she looked at the
counters and
She noticed that there were like little mounds under the
Under the paint and the wallpaper and so she checked it out and she discovered that it was piles of grease
They had just papered over the grease and that came from the fact that the miners when they were done with their frying pans
They never washed anything
They just hung them on the wall and the grease fell down and built up on the counter
So she said to her husband
No
Basically, so I want it all gone and I want it cleaned and fixed the other thing is is that
Underneath the house had been used as a garbage pit for a very long time
So her first night Emily's first night
She was plagued by fleas because there were wild pigs living under the house and she couldn't sleep all night
So she said to her husband what is going on here? I want you to get rid of the pigs
He said I don't want to get rid of the pigs.

They eat the garbage
She said I don't want garbage under the house
So she made him hire someone to come and there were piles of clothes and
Broken dishes and broken bottles and God only knows what else under there which had created a pit of
Disgusting
Stuff which the pigs were eating so she made her husband get rid of all of that and the other thing that was interesting about Emily's
First house was that he had lined the walls with
cloth
It kept the inside of the house fairly good
But the rats like to live between the cloth and the wood and so at night
She could hear the rats running around and the other thing is when there was wind
The how the the cloth used to go like this and she said she felt like she was on a sailing ship and would make her
Seesick at night because the house was going her like that in the wind
The other thing that's pretty interesting about Emily other than the fact that she was friends with Ellen and a very strong suffragist is
That two years after they arrived in Nevada County
her husband was trying to do a land deal and
They were standing out in the street and Emily kind of looked at him and and they she noticed that they had started to fight and these
Two men had ganged up on her husband and were beating him up
Emily went out she picked up the biggest rock
She could find and she went over to the guy who was doing the most damage to her husband
And she cracked him a good one on the head
knocked him down and then I guess the other guy decided that
Forbearance was the better part of valor so he stopped beating on up on her husband
She hit him so hard he had to go to the local doctor and get stitches on the way home
She noticed that she'd lost her petticoat, so she picked that up and went home with it and and two days later gave birth to her first child
Now that's a
That's a strong woman and Emily worked with Ellen for all of her life for suffrage
One of the big lures was that in 1849 there was a law passed allowing single women to own property
The earliest women who came were very entrepreneurial and they figured out right away
How they could make money not just for themselves
But for their family if they'd had children some of them brought children with them
There were in existence what were called soul trader laws
Which basically allowed a woman to have her own business and keep all her own money
Which was an unusual thing because of course in the east
The rules were different they came down from colonial times the English common law
Which stated that a woman and a man once they were married they became one person and that person was the man
This was a law that was introduced in 1852
By a representative from Nevada County who knew all too well that men who were minors often simply disappeared for months on end
Or went back east and left their wives and children without any sorts of income
So when this law was passed it opened up a lot of opportunities for women in grass Valley for example in 1853
Clara Smith declared was declared a soul trader and
Operated the Golden Gate Saloon where the Holbrook Hotel is currently
Mary Hamilton
ambitiously planned to raise stock and poultry keep a boarding house and
Mine by hired labor and Priscilla Scott also planned to raise poultry in stock and keep a dairy
And since milk milk then sold for twice the price of whiskey
She expected to make a considerable profit
So this kind of opened doors for them in terms of entrepreneurship
So many came west and were able to use their domestic skills
what that were sorely lacking among the men and
you know including
sewing and washing and and
Running boarding houses and running restaurants and cooking and one woman even reportedly
Made $18,000 making pies for hungry minors
One woman Luzino Wilson
came in
1850 and
The very first day she got there.

She had no place to live her husband had not built the house
They were they didn't even have a tent.

So what she did is she went out and bought a board
from a fellow who was trying to build the second home in Nevada City and
Took four pieces of wood hammered him into the ground laid this board on top and started baking and cooking
And at the end of that day she had 20 minors sitting at that table who had each paid her at least a dollar
Up to a dollar fifty for their meal and she's thought to herself.

Oh
This is too good to be true.

I mean I've been cooking.

I've been cleaning
I might as well do it and make some money
She pies were her thing and her pies were famous and the men were so longing for home
So missing the home cooking that they've clustered to her
She charged a dollar to a dollar 25 a pie depending upon what kind it was and
In one day she sold 100 pies
Eventually she built she and her husband built a place called the El Dorado Hotel in Nevada City
Where she ran it like a boarding house and she cook and she made a ton of money in one year
She made $80,000 for a woman at that time
And it was hers and she made it very clear to anyone who would ask and including her husband that it was her
money, so one of the unusual occupations that was available to women when they came west was
In the theater and in other forms of entertainment
Such as a lot of crab tree and Lola Montez
And then there were the sex workers a.

k.

a.

entertainers who flooded the area from cities and even other countries and
There was by one account found that the ratio of respectable women to prostitutes in the goldfields was five to one
So in the beginning these entertainers
Escaped the stigma that would later come with the arrival of more wealthy families bringing their middle-class morality
some of these women were
Treated well and in fact other women who were not entertainers tended to copy their fashion sense
But this this rapidly changed with the onslaught of middle-class families later on
Some of the very first women to be allowed to vote in the West were women who were prostitutes
Because they owned they owned businesses and because they had to purchase
License in order to keep that business going
That money was used to fund police departments fire departments if there were such a thing at that time
And so those women such as Eleanor Dumont if she bought a license at the time that she started her brothel
Or her house here in Nevada County if she was able to purchase a license at the time and that might have been too early
That money would have gone to fund those particular
Services certainly later on when you had Texas Tommy who was a well-known prostitute in Nevada County
Her licensing went to fund those particular
Services again, and they were allowed to vote in local elections
So really those very first women who came West a lot of them here in Nevada County because they were they were not the reputable
Women they were the prostitutes in the area
They were able to vote before
The more proper the more respected women were but we owe them a debt for being able to exercise their right to vote
And other women even disguised themselves as men as a way to make higher wages or avoid harassment
There was a stagecoach driver named Charlie Parkhurst who actually was named Charlotte
nobody knew and
Another mountain Charlie she was a prospector and a ranch owner and she
Was actually a woman who once she made enough money went back to her home in St.

Louis and lived a traditional woman's life
You know a lot of women suffered on the frontier
But others thrived and still more kind of reveled in the wild and loose spirit of living on the frontier
so
There was one 49 or a prospector a woman named Mary McGuire who summed up the spirit that drew some women to the Gold Rush and she
Said it's all the same whether you go to church or play the con game three guard Monty.

That's why I like California
the justice of the peace who
Gave these women soul trader status was Nathan Davis.

He was a South Carolinian and
He and many other men in California did not actually buy the concept of soul trader women
He wrote to his sister back in South Carolina
Who had expressed an interest in being?
Working outside the family home.

I do not like the idea of a delicate girl.

He said Mary was then 28
Knowing all the sin of this life, which rough contact of the world teaches
But the environment in California really made this a necessity.

Oh and the soul trader laws made it
Possible for them to have their own money.

So that made it possible for them to leave
Their husbands if they were abusive although divorce was certainly available in other states.

It had an enormous stigma in
California the stigma was less because there were fewer women and
Divorce women simply went back into the marriage market, which appealed to all the men in California in
1851 one day a judge did 10 divorces in one day and one of the women brought her
Intended with her into the courtroom and as soon as the judge should pronounce her divorced
She just turned around and got married to the guy she brought into the
Into the courtroom.

So and that same day in 1851.

He also did 10 weddings
The women really felt a lot freer
But the soul trader laws
As soon as California became a state well not as soon but shortly thereafter
Everything started to get tighter again and by the time women got the vote in 1911 the soul trader got laws were gone
But there were risks for women on the frontier and it certainly held no guarantees even for women with families
Poverty was rampant and some died of disease and many never found their fortune a great many never found their fortune.

So
Others had it stolen or many lost at gambling and women with families often ended up being the primary breadwinner
One woman journalist a Nevada City journalist pretty well known who was African-American
Wrote about a Nevada City family and here's what she said the mother died
The father a confirmed drunkard and the children left without a protector
This is an everyday occurrence if the aching breaking and broken hearts were weighed in the same scale with the gold
The gold would fly up light as air while the hearts would weigh down down down
And I thought that really provided a very vivid picture for me
Well in reading and researching this I did find it quite surprising that
Several of the Nevada City newspapers had women writing opinion columns
And doing reporting on their pages at that time, which was simply unheard of they did so under initials
And not their full name
because that you could imagine the backlash for that and
Two regular contributors included a woman known as L and another known as truth and equity
It was just it was not something it was done back then but it's pretty pretty impressive that they they provided that opportunity
for women at that time
to be hurt and
This the woman known as L was quoted as saying we contend that if female influence is good in private
It must be good in public
And she also wrote that those who engage in this cause are mothers of families rather than childless wives
Thus showing us this is not a restless desire to go beyond our sphere
But a full and empowering sense that our duties are performed our woman's fear, but half-filled
We were blessed my husband in every way during our long sojourn in Nevada County
But for many of our fellows the struggle was more temporal
especially for our Negro and Indian brethren I
Often regret that our spirits were too weak to skillfully navigate the demands of equality of the sexes
with equality of the races and
I prayed my beloved that you'd hear in your heart the soft whispering of your better angels
Especially to welcome our Oriental brothers and sisters who bound our nation together with ribbons of steel
Well, I think one of the
interesting things about Nevada County for me coming from the Bay Area, which is quite diverse is that
Even though we have a very small number of minority
groups in Nevada County
It hasn't always been that way
for example when the African-American
Residents here were no longer able to earn good jobs when they couldn't work in the mines once the mines became industrialized
But they moved down to Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco and other parts of the country and
the institutions they left behind
the schools their churches there was a
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Nevada City and one in Grass Valley
These could not be sustained with small populations and once the population was gone the buildings were torn down
unlike
Some of the other churches the white churches which were sort of deemed were saving
so I think what's happened is that
When groups leave and I this is true with the Chinese as well
That there's no tangible way to remember them and that allows us to forget them
African-American women came to California from very diverse backgrounds.

Many actually came enslaved
There were at least 13
Slave owners in Nevada County who had brought slaves with them including women
Others were escaped slaves or free women of color who came
Generally from the eastern states and the border states
They came as highly educated women
And as illiterate women slave women while slaves in general
Were forbidden from learning to read or write in most of the southern states
They also came from all levels of society
Some of the women who came were within their own black communities for example in Philadelphia
very high level in society and others were washer women and
Meneo laborers there were black school teachers who taught black children schools were integrated for
up into
1876 and of course are probably a most famous professional woman was Jenny Carter who was
That very rare thing a black journalist in the in the West
But once women became established and had an opportunity to work and save
They could become property owners and accumulate their own wealth
Chacy Sanks who came here illiterate
Enslaved had at one point sufficient funds to make loans to white property buyers on Mill Street
There were two booth women went members of the booth family a mother and daughter who had property on North Pine Street
And Coyote Street in Nevada City one of the things that
African-American women had to deal with however
Was sexual predation far more than white women in Nevada County or other parts of California?
Mary Dorsey for example
Came enslaved her enslave her a man by the name of Louis Best
father to children on her and
Threatened to send her and the children back to Missouri to slavery
She was a very enterprising woman.

She got five of her customers.

She was a laundress
Businessmen in Nevada City to agree to buy her and her two children
Which they did Nile Searles was one of the men who?
Chipped in to do that.

She was later able to pay them back
But not earn enough money to free two other children who'd been left behind
in slavery
Another grass valley woman was literally kidnapped.

She was a free black woman, but she was held captive until she
essentially paid
$500 in
Distortion rather than be sold in slavery out of the state and it was pretty common for minors to
frequent
African-American social events
With the sole purpose of gaining access
To what they called yellow gals quote unquote, of course African-Americans weren't the only
non-white group in Nevada County
When the minors arrived in the gold rush, of course, there were Native Americans here whose
Lives were horribly affected by
The influx of minors for example the native women of the region suffered, you know
unimaginable horrors including rape and massacre and kidnapping and
And in 1850 the state passed a law that even allowed whites to enslave natives who were found orphaned or loitering
So that kind of gives you the idea a sense of this lack of power that they
They endured to think about the daily life of the Nissanan woman
I I have to think before the gold rush
And what that really means is before
The Nissanan people were used as labor for a lot of the folks that came and it was before a time where
Um
Especially the women were in fear of their lives
You know, you're talking about a culture that was thousands of years old
And I really do believe it was just the swiftness with which the gold rush came
The amount of people who came who came to take from this place
They literally were coming for one single thing and that was the gold and most of them had no intentions on staying here
They were taking that wealth back to their families to enrich their lives.

You know, we know that some of the
Kind of the worst of the worst from almost every single country on the planet came here
Which impacted of course the tribe there was a
Depending on where the people were from which country and what their mentality was against the Indian people
Some people even Americans coming across the continent
Who had fought in the big Indian wars earlier? So they came with a preset idea of how
Things were going to be here and with that
mentality came a lot of cruelty
and a lot of just disregard for Indian life
And the women were of course
subject to rape
You know, we talk about the diseases that came that killed Indian people
You know, I you think smallpox or you didn't have an immunity to what I brought with me from my place of origin
But you're talking violent
Most of the women were dying from syphilis
So this is not an accidental whoopsy, you know, didn't mean to give you my flu type
I'm sorry.

I don't mean to laugh.

It's just you know, it's just also absurd when
When you have to say things like this out loud, it's like, um
But you know, they're they're violent
There's so much violence and these aren't things that I want people to feel pity for
Sorry about but you can't get to the truth and understanding of something without talking about the truth of what happened
But it really it's just that swiftness of destruction
that the people survived at all is um
You know, they don't talk about these things a lot.

So it's been really interesting uncovering
Just the women in our family the history and understanding, uh, what happened
And then of course over the Chinese women
Some of whom were brought in as sex workers and were exploited through low wages and also endured discrimination
violence the largest
Ethnic population were the Chinese which represented in the early years about 10 percent of the population
This was almost an entirely male population and they were
Not only discriminated against because of their language and their appearance and their customs
But they were also not Christian and African-Americans were given a bit of a pass
Relative to the Chinese because they were Christians.

The other difference.

I think was that the Chinese
Did not assimilate or were not
Inclined to assimilate in quite the same ways that the African-Americans did
So they remained a terribly discriminated minority
And the Chinese exclusion acts which came in later really codified that into law
Jenny Carter interestingly enough was very sympathetic to the Chinese
And was offended that a number of African-Americans in the community
Looked down on the Chinese and she
At one point wrote that she thought that any
Person who had been in bondage
Deserved the respect of any other group of people that were in bondage
It would be important for nevada county to remember that its history doesn't just reside in the sort of
Redshirted grizzly minor that you know, we see
All over every image in nevada county, but rather had this much larger population
That brought a lot of different things to bear in the community
And so I think we would all be
Better educated and better informed and have a better perspective
I have a hard time imagining
That through a lot of these struggles women didn't have the ability to to be heard
You know, not just with the inability to vote, but also lack of representation
To have people in our government protecting their rights
Speaking for them looking out for them
They were considered property of their husbands or until they got married of their fathers
Couldn't vote couldn't own property couldn't make any of their own choices or decisions
So basically they
Were
Less than I think it's is the best way to describe it just making sure that
Women having their place
The difficulties of maybe not having any representation and being
more subservient in their roles in the home
And not having necessarily their own voice
And you know, you think back a hundred years you think back to what those women went through
Imprisoned hunger strikes
Not being allowed to own property
You know not being able to make decisions for themselves and as a society we have to move forward
We cannot not move backward
Taking up the banner of suffrage set us on a long and arduous path my darling
So many of us suffered deprivation
brutality
and sacrifice along the way
And of course the many disappointments
Which you shared with me
But my spirit is restored when I reminisce of the friends
And allies we made throughout the years
And how together step by step
We drew closer to the promised land of salvation and liberation
And the suffrage movement in Nevada County was run by
Upper and middle class educated white women who were married to prominent men
And they have their permission to undertake this campaign
So this gave them a platform that many other women in the county didn't have
There were also financial requirements to belong to certain suffrage organizations and many were just too expensive for people to join
I was interested to learn that many of them never saw suffrage as their only goal
Or even their main one
Many said that the combined injustices of limited marital rights
racism
Economic oppression and sexual violence were were very central to their vision
But it's amazing how much they sacrificed around the country
They went on to endure imprisonment hunger strikes even force feeding
And many of them carry the scars and physical mental
Scars for the rest of their lives and obviously some of them died as we know
The idea of woman suffrage really coalesced at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848
It's not that women hadn't before advocated for their rights
But it was the first time that there was a meeting about it in Seneca Falls
The first women's rights convention
So it was called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and also a Lucretia Mott who had met years before at an abolitionist convention
There were three women that were primarily instrumental in helping to put this movement on the map
One of them was a lady by the name of Lucretia Mott
She grew up being allowed to do all kinds of things
And she married a gentleman by the name of James Mott and they moved to pennsylvania
She and James are abolitionists and they are also a part of the
national anti-slavery movement
And they're delegates and they go to england for this convention and as delegates at this convention
Lucretia is excited to be able to express her own thoughts on it
But when she's there she's told immediately you were not going to be able to talk because you're a woman
They had actually been working for abolition, but had been denied to sit with the male delegates
And this breaks her heart
Also incites little anger in her and puts a fire in her belly
So when she comes back to the united states
She speaks with another woman who's quite instrumental in the movement and that's Elizabeth Cady Stanton
And that's when they decide that they are going to have a
three-day conference in cynical falls new york in
1848 and that's where they're going to discuss the whole idea of women having the right to vote
so and the first two days of this conference is
Just with uh, Lucretia and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a handful of other people who are interested in helping to make this movement go forward
and um
Elizabeth Cady Stanton is incredibly nervous when she gets up to begin speaking to this audience
She's never done any public speaking before and so when she does get up to speak her voice is very quiet
And then she finds it in her to begin reading aloud the declaration of independence
And when she gets to the part where all we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men
She adds all women and men are created equally get here the audience just to ripple in the audience
Thinking what is this woman? Why is she even talking about this?
Women what they learned from being part of the abolitionist movement was how to have a movement
How to network how to be successful in a movement?
And so they took those ideas and applied them to themselves at this convention in seneca falls.

They wrote
What was called the declaration of sentiments?
It was based on the declaration of independence where it said that all men and women were created equal
It had a list of grievances just like the declaration of independence did
But what made it different was it also had resolutions on how to solve it
So one of those resolutions was the ninth resolve which was for women's suffrage
300 people come to this convention and are all in agreement that women should have rights
But because of that ninth resolve
Only a hundred people signed the declaration of sentiments both men and women did not think that women should have suffrage
But a hundred of them did and that sort of kicks off the women's rights movement there in 1848
Elizabeth cady stanton was married
And had ended up I think having eight children in between having all those children
She was traveling all over and writing and doing all this work.

And yet she among all of the suffragists
Was the most
broadly progressive
Of all of them.

So there's a little bit difference in terminology
When talking about the suffrage movement
The women suffragists themselves always called it woman suffrage
You will sometimes hear call it called it women's suffrage or maybe the women's suffrage movement and it's not that that's wrong
It's just that though if you're you know really being specific about terminology that the they always referred to it as woman suffrage
Just like when they were advocating for
The newly freed slaves to have suffrage.

It would be black suffrage or universal suffrage
They put it in that same kind of terminology
The same thing goes with suffragettes and suffragists that the they call themselves suffragists
But the term suffragette actually comes from a british reporter in 1906 who used the french diminutive et as sort of a put down
but those suffragists were
also very militant
And the women of the united states decided that they didn't want to adopt that term
They wanted to differentiate themselves from the militant
British suffragettes, and so they always called themselves suffragists.

What happened in 1869
Tragically is that there was a big split in the suffrage movement the more progressive
women such as ellen and susan and
Elizabeth and the other women I mentioned wanted
Suffrage to include all kinds of other rights for women
Domestic violence right not to be beaten
They wanted equal rights for work.

They want to be able to own their own property
They want to have custody of their children
And so forth
They had decided that all of this had to be included with suffrage and that the only way women could get this these rights would be
Through suffrage the other group and originally they'd all work together, right? Okay.

The other group
um, which consisted of people like lucrisiamott and henry blackwell and
Carrie Chapman cat and juya word howe and those women were much more conservative
They didn't want anything to do
with
All this other stuff they felt like it would anger the men in their lives and and make it too difficult
They just wanted to focus on suffrage
Also, they wanted to do it state by state and the national
Organization wanted to do it with the constitutional
amendment
So the 14th amendment granted citizenship, but the in the 15th amendment granted voting rights to the newly freed slaves
When those two were being debated one of the differentiations was in the 14th amendment
They inserted the word male
Into that amendment and it was the very first time the word male or female had been in the constitution and so
the women's
Rights groups were adamant that they didn't want the word male inserted.

It was in response to
representation in congress
Over the 15th amendment they wanted to add the word sex
So the 15th amendment said that you couldn't be denied the vote based on
race color or previous condition of servitude
They wanted to add the word sex
The women's rights groups were unsuccessful in getting either the word male removed or getting the word sex added
They thought that especially adding sex to the 15th amendment would kill the amendment and it wouldn't get have passage
The other thing that split them up was that um
As we know
Suffrage came out of the abolition movement
It was only when women started working in that movement to free the slaves and to save slaves that they began to see their own lives
As bearing a great resemblance to slavery the more radical arm
with ellen and susan and all of them
did not want to
support the 14th and 15th amendment unless there was
Something in there that made it possible for women to have suffrage the other group
The more conservative group
wanted to go ahead and
pass
The uh 15th particularly the 15th amendment escaped black men the right to vote
But the women said wait wait wait wait
We need to be added on to that because if we don't we're afraid we'll never get it
As part of this division even though you have abolitionists who had been fighting for slaves to be
freed
There's also this big debate on well wait you've got you know, how can you let them have suffrage?
And not women and so you get elizabeth katie santon saying things like
You know, how can you let ignorant irishman vote or count?
How can you let uneducated freed slaves vote before you would allow educated white women?
You have susan anthony who has the quote, you know
I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the vote for the negro and not for the woman
That's problematic
We have to you know really look at the fact that
They're they're using racist language there, you know, they because they how much they want the vote for women
So we have to see people are complicated.

They they worked for abolition and at the same time
they really wanted
women to have suffrage as well and this
Debate and thing that starts in the 14th and 15th amendment will be part of the woman's suffrage movement
All the way through the movement until suffered women do actually get suffrage
And we need to acknowledge that women in the suffrage movement
Um, it was basically a white women's organization that um, it's not that black women weren't part of it because they were
But they were often pushed to the fringes in that push for white women to get the suffrage and particularly middle class white women and
upper class white women the early civil rights priorities for
African Americans in california
Were for the abolition of slavery
securing access to public accommodation
And education for their children the right for black men to vote
And the elimination on the ban of testimony of black men in court early on in the suffrage movement
African-american and black women were working together and frederick douglas
The great orator was early and heartfelt supporter of suffrage
But along the way the white white women in the suffrage movement
Seemed to embrace the fairness
In the abstract the fairness of white and black women being equal
While simultaneously publicly expressing bigoted remarks about black men
White women were essentially seeking parity with their brothers fathers and husbands
But black women were seeking the ballot for themselves and for their men
As a way to empower their community to fight what was just essentially a reign of terror
That came with the gem crow era
Regarding the rift between black and white suffragists
Uh frederick douglas who was had been firmly in favor of women's suffrage since the very beginning
set in 1869
I must say that I do not see how anyone can pretend
That there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to women
As to the negro with us the matter is a question of life and death
It is a matter of existence at least in 15 states of the union
When women because they are women are hunted down through the cities of new york and new orleans
When they are dragged from their houses and hung upon lampposts
When their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed out upon the pavement
When they are objects of insult and outrage at every turn
When they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads
When their children are not allowed to enter schools
Then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own
The other two, um strains that are important in understanding suffrage in addition to abolition
Is the temperance movement
And in 1874 francis willard started the temperance big temperance movement
And originally it was a movement just to stop drinking and it may sound silly to us these days
But in those days it wasn't silly at all because people didn't drink water then
They were afraid of getting
Sick from it, which they often did and the men spend a lot of time in the bars and saloons and getting very very drunk
And then coming home and beating up their wives and so forth and the women saw this as a way to protect their homes and their families
So the women who were in the temperance movement started working for suffrage
Why because they felt that if women got the vote they could vote against liquor and against saloons and so forth
The suffrage movement, um began with some difficulty because a lot of
Men believed that if they gave women the right to vote that they would have to give up
alcohol
Because the whole idea of prohibition got in the way of a women's right to vote
Especially when it begins in the east and when you have very radical women involved with the movement
And some of these radical women were a part of the christian temperance movement
There was a very famous saying at the time which was first the west than the rest of the nation
Which made made people like lucretia mott and lisbeth catty stanton and susan b anthony very happy
Susan b anthony is invited to come and speak
And and talk about the movement throughout the pacific northwest by abigail scott done away
And um the two of them tour the pacific northwest and do stump speeches everywhere they can
They they talk on river boats.

They go to saloons.

They talk in churches everywhere they go
They find an audience.

They're able to speak about this issue
And susan b anthony um after the summer of being there in the pacific northwest with done away talking about this issue this issue
Their tour is over
Done away goes back to her business, which is running a newspaper
Called the new northwest and susan b anthony is going to go back to chicago
And so she boards a train in utah
To head back to chicago
Aaron sargent had been the author of the pacific railway act in 1862 during his first term in the house of representatives
So when he was traveling east for his second term in 1872, he had a whole train car for his family.

This train
Uh just coincidentally came onto the train susan b anthony who was also traveling from her suffrage work back to washington dc
So when the train stops in utah and susan b anthony gets on the train
It's just jam packed with people very few places to sit
She does find a compartment
That has um two people in it and they welcome her with open arms to come in
And share their compartment with them and one of those that that was susan b anthony comes into the compartment
Then of the sergeants
Susan susan b anthony is
So excited to meet them because ellen sergeant is very much a fan of susan b anthony and introduces herself
It turned out to be a nightmare of a trip.

It was supposed to take two days
They left at the end of december and didn't arrive until washington dc until january 10th
I think it was and that's how they got to know each other so well and why they became such good friends
So while the sergeants are sharing their compartment with susan b anthony the three of them discussed suffrage and how crucial it is
anthony had been arrested for voting while
Being a woman in the election of 1872
Sergeant did not think that the amendment applied to women and the supreme court would rule in 1874 that women were citizens
But that voting was a privilege and not a right and therefore women could be denied voting
They also discussed the wording that sergeant has put together himself over a series of weeks
Which we now know is the 19th amendment and they kind of shaped this and crafted this and it was
28 words and those 28 words with the 19th amendment were the right of citizens of the united states to vote
Shall not be denied or bridged by the united states or by any state on the account of sex
And that particular wording
Even though it was drafted in 1871 becomes
The 19th amendment which was ratified in august of 1920
Aaron sergeant didn't introduce it in the senate for another six years when he was a senator and before he left congress in
1878
What I appreciated about the sergeant's relationship is the fact that he was very generous
with ellen and
You have to have a really good relationship in order to be able to pursue
A movement that everybody seems to not be
In favor of and so it was good that Aaron sergeant was very supportive of his wife and agreed
That women should have the right to vote
I don't know that it would have been moved as forward in nevada county
Had it not been for the two of them having a unified front
So nevada city was the home of ellen clark sergeant
She and her fellow group of women in nevada city
Formed the nevada county women's suffrage association
This was composed of all white women, of course, no surprise
and they were all wives of
Businessmen lawyers
doctors
Publishers editors and other important men
What's interesting about
The association is how much support they had from their husbands
Suffrage was not a popular women's suffrage was not a popular
movement in the country in
The early years in 1869, but there seemed to be a unique group of support that these women had
They formed the association with the formal bylaws and constitution
They met at the homes of various of the members
and
They seemed to get some exceptional press in no part
Because several of their husbands were in the newspaper business
This was not so true with grass valley where the publisher there was not
Not especially in favor of suffrage.

So I think what was interesting about them was
That they took it very seriously.

They took it formally
And the sort of momentum that they got going
continued on after
The 1860s and the sergeants left california
To go to europe and to washington dc
One of her daughters elizabeth also became active in the movement
And later when ellen was in san francisco after her husband died
It was her son george a lawyer who took her case to court
She made the case in california that
She was paying taxes and not able to vote and george took that case to court
many other women besides ellen tried this tactic of of having to
Pay taxes that idea that came out of the american revolution of no taxation without representation
And so they used that as sort of a rallying cry for why they had a basis in order to
sue
Without being represented in 1901 when ellen's sergeant took her case to court
It was denied by the judge again kind of that idea being that voting
Has it had been ruled by the supreme court was a privilege and not a right and therefore
You know taxes were a burden everyone had every property owner had to pay whether or not.

Um, they were male or female
She never stopped fighting
for suffrage and regrettably she died shortly before
The 19th amendment was passed
They wrote the 19th amendment
Everybody else pales in comparison to what the sergeants did and their
Um
Their contribution to it all and to think that it took place right here in nevada county
The friendship that they maintained with susan b anthony throughout the rest of their lives
And the the documentation of that friendship and the letters
That are available at serles library where you can go through all of these amazing letters between susan and ellen and erin and
Um
Throughout the course of the sergeants life even when they moved to germany at one point
They continued corresponding and to think that that treasury of all of those letters are right here at serles library
Is phenomenal i think to say that erin sergeant was the central figure in the women's suffrage movement.

It's a pretty big
Understatement considering he's the actual author of the words that uh became law many years after his death
Sergeant when he came west he got involved in the publishing business because after
Failing to make any money at in the gold rush and he actually went to work with the first newspaper in this area
One of about 40 that operated between uh 1850 and the early 1900s
That paper and several others in nevada city were pro suffrage
Um
While some of the papers in uh grass valley were were anti suffrage
One of the things i found really interesting was that there were very heated political differences between grass valley and nevada city
nevada city was pro suffrage and most of its residents were american born
In grass valley with a boom of courts this brought in
Foreign born immigrants from england ireland in germany.

There was a huge influx during this time
And what was interesting was that nevada city men seemed to mistrust foreigners and many of them hoped that if women gained the right to vote
They could help push their nativist agenda
And while erin sergeant was part of some of these nativist leaning organizations
Many contend that his fight for women's rights to vote extended far beyond nevada county and so
This was beyond where nativism was an issue
So that it kind of led him off the hook in it that that probably wasn't a hidden agenda for him
but
According to some accounts it was for many nevada city men
on the other hand
Documents suggest that nevada city women were less motivated by this nativist anti foreigner
Sentiment and more interested in just securing their own civil rights
Some of the grass valley newspapers including the union
Essentially mocked the whole idea of women's suffrage at the time
There was a
newspaper story that out from one of the nevada city papers that a suffrage movement was canceled due to weather
And the next day in the union apparently there was a some uh, they were having some fun with it and saying well
Women need to understand that you know the weather does happen essentially and that
They the men would never not meet because of weather they kind of went on to talk about that if women want
Uh
The right to vote they have to accept the responsibilities that come along with it and really a a lot of a patronizing type of
language back then
And actually the the rivalry between grass valley and nevada city was somewhat at its height at that time because grass valley had
surpassed the nevada city gold production with its courts mining
and
Some of the nevada city folks thought that it would be a good thing to pass the women's suffrage because
It gives the women the right to vote and surely they would vote right alongside with the men
And one of the the issues of the day though that that was really important to those folks was
That while the courts mining was was growing and the population of grass valley was booming
A lot of people working those jobs were immigrants people from cornwall
A lot of the folks in nevada city who were writing for these newspapers
They weren't really excited about that and they thought that that would be an area that having more votes from the women
Would help bolster their argument against
At the time of the centennial the united states
Uh, there were great celebrations and there was one great celebration in washington dc
And at this particular celebration what was going to happen all these people were gathered, you know
And they had bleacher kind of things set up and people were sitting and what was going to happen is that the
Vice president of the united states was going to hand this rolled up document that had the
Declaration of independence on it
To the vice president and they were going to make a speech and all that
meanwhile
the ladies
And that would be susan b anthony matilda jocelyn gauge and ellen sergeant
Said no, this is not right
We don't have the right to vote.

We're 50 percent of the population.

We are going to present our own
uh
Declaration of independence
So the three of them wrote this thing on a big thing that would roll up like a scroll
A declaration of rights of women
On the occasion of the centennial.

Okay very formal very all written out
Rolled all up.

They all went to washington dc
Rolled up tied at the ends with red white and blue ribbon like official banners
They had officially asked if they could be part of the ceremonies and they were turned down, of course
So they did not let that deter them
When the vice president came out and to the podium and began to speak the women got up from their seats
Walked right up to him
Handed him this declaration of rights of women
and then proceeded to march
straight back
And at the there were there was there was a window a huge window at the back of the room
They just walked right out the window
And then when the women got outside the window and down to the ground
They began handing out all their pamphlets and everything about suffrage and so forth
So ellen was involved in that in 1876 between 1890
And 1911
Western states gave suffrage to women and then in 1912 three more so that's a total of eight
But the women in 1890 to 1910 just felt like they weren't making any progress and this state by state
Uh, trudge to try and get it was proving to be too difficult and too time consuming
So about that time Alice Paul who had studied with the english suffragists
Came back with her friend lucy burns.

They had experienced force feeding and jail in england
They came back to the united states
and they trained the women in
Uh
What they had what they had been through and what they needed to do to get enough eyes and ears on them to make it happen
So they organized
What was called silent sentinels
Who rain or shine winter?
Spring didn't matter stood in front of the gates of the white house with huge signs saying mr.

President
What have you done for woman's suffrage or when the first world war began mr.

President
How can you speak of democracy when women don't have the right to vote?
when america declared war on germany and april public opinion changed and
They used wilson's own words on banners about liberty and democracy
Because of the espionage act and the sedition act that made it unlawful to speak out against the war
The sentinels were eventually arrested in june
On the trumped up charge of obstructing traffic because they weren't breaking any laws
The women were sent to aquacon, which was a workhouse.

They had deplorable conditions
They're initially their sentences would be for a few days then the next time they would be arrested
It would be for a few weeks and then they're when they arrested again
It would be for a few months, but there were they were constantly striking and being arrested
in this process
of
Picketing the white house
After alice paul was arrested in october
She she goes on a hunger strike
Others follow suit and this is when the force feedings begin
On november 14th was termed the night of terror when the suffragists were beaten kicked pinched clubbed
And chained by the guards.

They didn't relent
They didn't stop their hunger strike word got out.

It started to really look bad for wilson
It was going to be picked up by the foreign presses the
Suffragists started to look good in the press and they were all released from prison two weeks later
And the main thing that changed was public opinion
So just as they had gotten support initially by picketing the white house and then public opinion turned against them with the war
Public opinion was back in their favor after they were experienced such harsh conditions in
prison
and so
ellen getting back to ellen she was involved in all of this except not the end marches because she has got
She got too old by then
she was living in san francisco
and working for woman suffrage
and still being the honorary president of the national american woman suffrage association
and also the president of the nevada county woman suffrage association
And also the california equal suffrage association.

So she was still working and heading in all of those
and then
She became ill
and died
in july
Four months before california women got the right to vote
Which is kind of a sad
Ending but she knew it was going to happen.

She had full faith that it would happen
You know, it's interesting when you when you talk about erin sargent
and how
I think it was the writer ralph man was quoted in a piece.

I read where
They were talking about why the nevada city newspapers might have been in favor of women's suffrage to to
To gain more votes because women would certainly vote just like the men
um
but
Others were were saying that um that sergeant that's too much of a generalization for sergeant
Because he had he gave a full-throated
support of the women's suffrage movement and
I'm sure that his wife had had a lot to do with that.

She was the driving force to this
But to say that uh, he didn't have ulterior motives
You know, it gets really it gets really complex because then you're looking at his support of women's suffrage
But at the same time, um, he doesn't think that the chinese immigrate immigrant worker should be here
So it's it's it's not as uh, is his cut and dry and black and white as we all
Might might like to think and and that's where that discussion about the statue that was being proposed for nevada city
That's where I really was scratching my head a little bit with that that decision because
he did so so much good and yet
he also
Was the author of a pretty horrid piece of legislation
That viewed today is clearly wrong
but in those times
I don't know how wrong it was viewed similar to, um, you know, our founders, uh, owning slaves
It's a difficult difficult discussion to have and and but at the same time
You know, that's kind of the history of our country
emerging from those dark
times of our past and
Um, and getting the change that we need to
Treat everyone with the the equality that we promised in the very beginning
ratification, um happens, um
After january of 1918 president wilson gives a speech to the house of representatives
He says that women have been part of our help in the war
They should see it as a war effort to give women's suffrage for all that they had sacrificed
So again women he's not encouraging that there should be women's suffrage because they're equal
He's saying, you know, or because they deserve it.

It's because it's part of the war measure
The house of representatives immediately passes it, but it doesn't pass the senate
They have to bring it in again in the next session of congress.

It does pass the house in 1919
Takes a while a couple votes to pass the senate and then wilson signs it and then it's ratified in august of 1920
it was fairly anti climactic in many respects because
You also had prohibition, but it was it was a really
Nice little finishing touch to that how it all got started women women's suffrage
Was kind of stalemated because of prohibition
So it was still all tied together right up into the to the to the end
The notion of women's suffrage is a recent idea because my grandmother
Was born before women could have the right to vote.

So it's very real and very
very moving and
in my own personal my own personal life and so
I appreciate that
That how many generations it's taken to get to this particular point that I am only the second generation in my family
able to vote
And I that's that's very impressive
Ours was a long and good life erin
filled with a pharaoh's treasury of experiences
and memories
But the ones dearest to my heart
Are of the pair of us
Fighting good fight
Arms locked
You and I standing steadfast against the world
What sustains me now
Is the most fervent hope that our children
Their children
And the many children yet to come to this blessed place
will remember
And treasure these gifts we struggled so long and hard to earn
And keep them always
I think that you know giving women the right to vote certainly started changing how
policy was made
But we've come a long way, but we potentially still have a long way to go
But I think that it started
It started to show you know that women were equal to men women could make decisions women
Could be in the workplace
Women could you know make choices to maybe move away from their husbands and live on their own before they were married
Had a long way to go
from 1920 to
Today
But I think that that was the beginning of the women's revolution and and women really
Be becoming equal to men in our society
I think what really resonates with me is
The fact that they fought with such passion and put themselves
In the middle of a very tough fight
Despite not knowing if they would ever even see this happen in their lifetime
And
That's something that we need to learn from today looking ahead to future generations
And of course it resonates with the quote that we all know that's been attributed to margaret mead, which is
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has
So I in looking forward I kind of see that
I see that women have a long way to go in terms of gender equality
women's rights are human rights
and
More than 70 years ago the united nations listed these fundamental human rights for
Everyone on the planet and we're still not there
These rights include the right to live free from violence
slavery and discrimination
To be educated to own property to vote
And to earn a fair and equal wage
So in looking around the country and the globe you can see we're still not there and the struggle's not over in many aspects
That's why the words that came from some of these early suffragists still ring true today
I think
In light of what's happening today a personal favorite quote of mine is from an 1869 editorial written by the nevada city woman
known as truth and equity
and she wrote
The presence of women has a restraining influence on man's coarser nature
You look at the time
You know the union did
advocate for
The end of slavery, you know the union itself in 1864
Is advocating for the end of slavery and yet they don't think women are equal to men
That's that's the complexity of of of that time and
I don't think you can reconcile that or say that that's okay
But at the same time you to understand it and to to learn from it and grow from it
We simply have to acknowledge it to begin with that that it is a difficult thing to do looking back at history and how things were done
often time
What's missing is the genocide that
The white people moving west committed
With the people who are living here
It's an ugly
ugly part of our history
And all we can really do is look back and and hope that we learn from it
I think it's good that we we've seen more women step forward
To run for office to be involved.

It makes me more hopeful for the future for my own daughters
You know having women involved at the level of making decisions is important
We show up.

We work well together.

We don't always agree on everything.

Sometimes we don't always like each other
But there's we're willing to compromise and we're always willing to work together.

Well, I think that when
Women run for office.

Just like anyone else we
Attempt to be fair to treat them just like any other candidate
I know that sometimes in the past
You read this more the national level, you know the discussions about
What women are wearing when they're running for office or you know, how they laugh or if their hair is moving when they talk
It's it's it kind of shows this the uh the inequality really of of the media's treatment of women
If you're passionate about something you're just emotional
Or if you're aggressive in voicing your opinion, you're just a bitch
and um
Those types of stereotypes they need to change
I would certainly hope that we are sensitive to that and and wouldn't go down that that uh that row because
um
I think that uh
My opinion.

I think that having more women step up and run uh for office
And be heard is a good thing and it's a necessary thing and it's
It's somewhat the next step of our evolution of this advanced society so to speak.

I mean
We need to have a government that that looks like the people it governs
All the things that you know as young girls sometimes we're told no you need to sit back and and let the boys do that
I didn't listen and I feel I I'm grateful that I didn't listen and that I moved ahead
And I I'm happy to be in a position today to talk to young girls and say don't let anybody
Hold you down be and do whatever you want in today's society
100 years later
And we have the right to vote everybody needs to exercise that right to vote women need to run for office
We have a lot of work to get done continually
It's my part to to take the baton and to keep moving forward
But I wouldn't be here today as the elected sheriff of nevada county without a lot of women that came before me
Now it was the equal rights amendment that I think was first written
In the 20s
Actually never was was was passed and never ratified it was passed by the house in the senate
And then it was never ratified by enough states to make it law
So it died essentially in 1979
It wasn't even a decade ago that the president of the united states
Said it was okay for
people to love and to marry
Who they like and it's so gratifying today to walk into a room and see it.

It's either 50 50 or you know
40 60 I will tell you in grass valley.

We have three of five that are women
In uh nevada city, they have three of five that are women up in truckie
There's two of five and at the board of supervisors there's two
So we're we're pretty evenly matched here in nevada county.

So we're we're pretty lucky when it comes to
The the numbers of women that are involved in things
But but also if you look at some of our other positions, um within the county, you know, look at the union
your advertising manager is a woman our you know our
Executive directors of some of our really important organizations are women.

We have a woman's sheriff in our town our our
CEO of nevada county is a woman
Um, I guess as far as women go, we're pretty progressive here in nevada county
I think our next step is women leaders in this community
Is to start engaging younger women to be involved in the political process
um, you know, many of my younger friends that are
Say under 45 under 40 they didn't they never lived in a time when a woman's right to choose was illegal
So they've they've taken they take it for granted
You know, none of us have lived in a time when women didn't have the right to vote
So you start taking things for granted and and I will tell you
It it never take anything for granted, you know
Even though we are very lucky that we live in the country that we live in
Things can change quickly and so run for office serve on a community nonprofit board
Um support somebody who's going to run for office encourage people if you feel like they're leaders
To put their name out there because that that's that that's what makes a great community is people who care
So
So
So
So
So
So
So