Los Angeles Citywide Historic Context Statement: Women's Rights in Los Angeles, 1850-1980

Winship, Sian; Lazzaretto, Christine; Fowler, Kari; Goers, Heather

From the introduction: "...The provides a chronological approach to presenting the topics and associated peoples, places, and events that shaped women's rights movements in Los Angeles. It then focuses on specific property types and eligibility standards for extant resources. As the narrative reveals, these resources date primarily from 1900 to the 1970s; pre-1900 resources are extremely rare. This context is distinctive from a 'history of women' in Los Angeles because it focuses specifically on women's rights and efforts to improve the lives of women and children in the city. It does not, for example, trace the history of women's clubs or social organizations that were not primarily political in purpose or that did not emphasize civic engagement that improved the lives of women and their families. However, important women's cultural or athletic clubs (e.g., the Ruskin Club, the Ebell Club, and YWCAs) are noted in relation to their significant suffrage or feminist contributions. Moreover, women who made significant historic contributions to areas outside of women's rights are not included here; however, they may be documented in other relevant contexts and themes of the citywide historic context statement. Presenting a history of women's rights in Los Angeles has several challenges. First, the documentation of women's history has historically been underreported in traditional media. Second, the activities of women of color was documented and reported even less by traditional media, and archival materials from the clubs and organizations for women to the suffrage movement have often been overlooked by scholars focused on the east coast or northern California and its cache of archival materials. Lastly, women's history has been written primarily by white women, without acknowledgement that the forms of oppression experienced by white middle- and upper-class heterosexual women were different from those experienced by women of other ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, and sexual orientations. This results in an incomplete telling that fails to take intersectionality into account. Documented examples of the participation of women of color are included here, but likely represent a small sample of their actual contributions. As a result, these examples should be viewed less as a comprehensive telling of the story and more as inspiration for additional scholarship in the future." Project funding was provided in part by a Historic Preservation Fund grant to the California Office of Historic Preservation, administered by the State, Tribal, Local Plans and Grant division, National Park Service, Department of the Interior (grant number P17AF00014).

Los Angeles Citywide Historic Context Statement: Women's Rights in Los Angeles, 1850-1980

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