Still missing....depending on where you look

Today the California Historical Society sent me a message concerning their store. I checked out their book list and was dismayed to find not one concerned women or women's activities in California. The society's journal, California History, has not been so exclusive, and in fact has published articles that have been on the forefront of the latest historical thinking. For example, the latest issue concerns three generation of women who contributed to the Spanish Revival movement in architecture. Several issues past explored the significant role of conservative women during the 1950s, an important reminder that women's history should include all varieties of political and feminist thought.

I look forward every time this excellent publication appears in my mail box, and read it through. Unfortunately, it is not something that will come before the purview of the average Californian, let alone one who wanders into the Society in San Francisco. I would love to be an editor at a publishing house right now and sign up people to fill the gap in the book shelves.

Meanwhile, another source that once available in local bookstores is The Californians. This magazine was well-designed for the general public, well-illustrated with historic photographs and artwork, well-referenced articles, and complete primary documents. Its demise years ago is still missed by those of us fascinated with state history, and notably that of its women's role.

Anna Strunsky Walling

Anna Strusky is well-known to those who are familiar with Jack London's life. They crossed paths at various socialist events during the turn of the 20th century. Born in Russia in 1877, Walling was 9 when her family emigrated to America, and 16 when it settled in San Francisco. She attended Stanford as one of its first female students, and assisted William James in some of his research. As a result of her socialist enthusiasm, one shared with older sister Rose, she did not remain at the university.

Intrigued by Strunsky's commitment and intellectuality, London invited her to collaborate on The Kempton-Wace Letters, published anonymously. The imaginary epistolary exchange concerns the existence of love, whether it is real and the basis for a strong marriage (Strunsky) or whether science should determine the selection of partners (London). London did marry on the basis of his wife Bess Maddern's solid potential as a progenitor of strong children. Two years into the marriage London and Strunsky fell in love, though she spurned him once she learned his wife was expecting a second child. He remained the great love of her life nonetheless.

Anna Strunsky's place in California history is thus not very significant, except as she represents one of many women of her time participating in the socialist movement of the Bay area. Had she remained in the state, instead of marrying William Walling and moving east, she would doubtless have played a larger role in California political movements. She also came from a Jewish family that grew in influence in San Francisco as a center for intellectual and political discussion.

James Boylan's Revolutionary Lives (University of Massachusetts Press) is the only book to date to explore Strunsky's socialism, which continued with her marriage to Walling. The couple spent two years in Russia, along with sister Rose, during a time of revolutionary outbreak, and were eventually jailed before being expelled from the country. They returned to New York to become key founders of the NAACP. Strunsky's promise as a writer and activist were squelched by the demands of her husband, who belittled her capabilities. They eventually parted ways when she remained a pacifist during WWI. As her children reached adulthood, she was once more active in political causes and writing. She died in 1964, survived by four children.

Sister Rose also moved to New York, settling in Greenwich Village. She became a noted translator of Russian works, notably those of Leon Trotsky. Rose married Louis Lorwin in 1920, and died in 1963.

Juana Briones de Miranda

Here is a topic for your child or grandchild taking California history to write about. Briones was born in 1802 in Santa Cruz. Her maternal grandparents and mother were part of the deAnza expedition in 1776, choosing to escape the rigid, complex racial caste system of Mexico for better opportunities in an unknown land. Her mother married one of the many soldiers who came to protect missions from Indians and incursions from other countries' explorers.

Juana and her siblings grew up in the San Francisco presidio, where in 1820 she married one of its soldiers, Apollinario de Miranda. There she bore eight children and adopted a Native American child as well. When her husband retired, they moved to what is now North Beach in Yerba Buena, where she kept a vegetable and herbal garden, as well as raised cattle for the hide-and-tallow trade. From her extended family she had learned the complex skills of natural medicine and was a renowned midwife and curandera who treated visiting sailors as well as local residents. She also learned from Native Americans, whose instructions helped her manage a small pox epidemic in Marin in 1834, and the setting of broken bones.

Briones challenged even the church authority by appealing to the bishop for a sancioned separation from her alcoholic and physically abusive husband in 1844. "Your Lordship, my husband is the greatest obstacle placed before my children, because from him they learn nothing but swearing, blasphemy, and ugly, lewd, and dissolute behavior. How will I excuse myself before God, if I do not seek, as much as I can, all possible means of ridding my family of such as bad example?" Nevertheless, the curate repeatedly ordered her to return her family home, which she refused. This was a most rebellious act for a woman of her belief and culture. Eventually she dropped her husband's name and referred to herself as a widow.

Juana had always been close to her sisters, using them at times for refuge, and purchasing with them lands beyond Yerba Buena. In 1844 she acquired the 4,400 acre Rancho La Purisima Concepcion covering parts of what is now Palo Alto and Los Altos. The adobe home she built remains and is part of a historic preservation effort. There continued her very successful ranching business and contributions to her community, with help from no men, including any of her sons, nor other male relations.

Briones is one of many Spanish-speaking women from this early period who broke beyond the restricted Mexican culture. Of mixed-race, she was able to achieve what would have been impossible in her mestizo grandparents' homeland, where emphasis on whiteness was obsessive and essential to advancement. She was able to take advantage of the Spanish culture's more liberal view towards women owning or inheriting property. Finally, in her standing up to the church, she would represent one of many whose challenge would spark a move toward secular government and society.

Kay Ryan, Poet

Ryan, a lifelong Californian and graduate of UCLA, was recently named our 16th Poet Laureate. [Ryan, on right, with Emily Warn at a poetry conference. Photo: Star Black,Flickr]

It was only after this announcement that I became familiar with her writing. What I discovered was someone who is unafraid of the most commonplace as the basis for wonder. A friend e-mailed me "Home to Roost," which begins:

The chickens
are circling and
blotting out the
day. The sun is
bright, but the
chickens are in
the way....

These charming first lines, with the almost childlike rhyme of day/way soon unfurls to offer a metaphorical commentary open to various interpretations. See the entirety of "Home to Roost" and several other of her poems at this PBS poetry page.

Ryan lives in Marin County, where she is also a mountain biker, so you could perhaps have a sudden encounter with her on Mount Tam. She admits to preferring a hermetic life, and is now forced to deal with publicity and perhaps more appearances than she would prefer.

Ryan has been published in many literary journals and magazines. Her collections of poetry are: Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends. Fairfax, CA: Taylor Street Press, 1983.
Strangely Marked Metal. Providence, RI: Copper Beech Press, 1985.
Flamingo Watching. Providence, RI: Copper Beech Press, 1994.
Elephant Rocks, New York: Grove Press, 1997.
Say Uncle. New York: Grove Press, 2000.
Niagara River. New York: Grove Press, 2005.

Caroline Seymour Severance, 1820-1914

At age 91, Caroline Seymour Severance deserved the honor of becoming the first woman in California to register to vote in Los Angeles following the passage of state suffrage in 1911. She was instrumental on several fronts in facilitating the suffrage movement both nationally and in her adopted state. Similar to many women of wealth during her time, she focused her philanthropy on the needs of women and children.

Raised in New York, Severance was a school teacher until her marriage to banker Theordore Severance in 1840. They lived in Ohio and Boston, where she became instrumental in founding a variety of organizations. Some consider her the "Mother of the Woman's Clubs" because of her role in creating and fostering such organizations. She was very active in Woman's Rights conventions. She headed the committee that founded the first regional suffrage association, the New England Woman's Suffrage Association, which formed in response to the failure of the abolitionist cause to achieve equal rights for women. In 1866 she helped Susan B. Anthony found the Equal Rights Association. Several years later she joined Lucy Stone and others in creating the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

When the family moved to Los Angeles in 1875, Severance could have slowed down, but she continued her many activities. Among her contributions were the establishment of several kindergartens, the first Unitarian congregation in LA, and various women's groups. Most important was her developing the Friday Morning Club (pictured as built 938-940 South Figueroa Street) which became the center of social reform activities. Such groups developed boarding hotels for single working women, training programs for better job opportunities, orphanages, hospitals, and schools. [Photo courtesy of Library of Congress]


Although women's clubs initially formed for self-education and social reform, eventually they committed more directly to suffrage. Through these clubs women learned to speak in public, to coordinate activities, to create and manage organizations, and to publicize their works. As a result, they became an important base, already in existence, for securing the vote. Regrettably, no comprehensive biography of this significant leader exists, and she is omitted from textbooks on California history.

Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon

A belated entry for this couple that was most deservedly allowed the first marriage at San Francisco City Hall in June, 2008. When I was growing up back east, I never heard the word lesbian or any reference to it. My mother knew gay men and described her first trip to a gay bar, yet it never occurred to me that women could be gay. (Photo by Mi-ly on Flickr. Thanks!)

Then I went to a woman's college where one year two women were ordered to leave their dorm rooms open 24/7. How was that for making a point? The result was to arouse great sympathy for the beleaguered dorm mates. (It's always interested me that many of the women administrators there were unmarried, and not visibly dating men. How many of them were in the closet?) Of course, this was before the civil rights movement, and women professors got paid and promoted less than their male colleagues, so homosexuality was definitely taboo as a public event.

Martin and Lyon moved to San Francisco in 1953, where they started the Daughters of Bilitis, the first major national organization for lesbians. In 1967, they joined the National Organization of Women and fought to eliminate homophobia from the nascent women's rights movement.

Moving eventually to Northern California in 1970, I had forthright lesbian students and befriended a number of them. They taught me pool, how to dance better, and urged me speak up more as a woman. Martin and Lyon's 1972 book on lesbian women was groundbreaking for these young women, who were so significant as activists in the women's right movement locally. It is difficult to imagine what courage it took on the authors' part to write on this topic. Many of my students had been disowned by their families, but created an extended fictive family in the area that remains to this day. I like to think of these early students also marrying. They taught me much more about life and injustice than I offered them in the classroom.

Paula Gunn Allen, Ph.D., 1939-2008

Raised in New Mexico of Laguna Pueblo-Métis-Scot and Lebanese heritages,this award-winning poet and scholar spent much of her professional life teaching at California universities. Allen's many books introduced readers to Native American literature, and she was key in having that literature taken seriously by critics. Gender also wove through her writings, as is evidenced by her last nonfiction book, Pocohantas, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She was equally renowned for her poetry, which has been anthologized widely. For more on this important writer and scholar, an online memorial offers more biography, book lists, and photographs.

California Women: A History

Joan M. Jensen and Gloria Ricci Lothrop wrote this for the blue paperback Golden State Series (Boyd and Fraser Publishing), surveys written for a general audience and students, yet with the research base of solid scholarship. Published in 1987, it remains the only history of women in California. As such, it reflects historical perspective of a time when women's history was in formation. The material is necessarily spotty because so much material had yet to be available. Nonetheless, this is an essential reference for anyone who writes about or studies California.

A notable gap concerns Native American women. Characteristic of the simplistic model developed under anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, the writers describe Indian life as though it never had a history of its own, that there was a classic life style that did not change. Nor is there concern with the great variability in Native California cultures. (A book specific to this topic remains to be written.)

The few pages on Californias also paints broad strokes, with emphasis upon ranchero dwellers. The writers do refer to specific individuals, such as Eulalia de Perez, who had been interviewed late in life. Scholarship since the 1980s has filled in much more about these women and more particularly how historical events forced changes in their lives, even before the change in governing to statehood.

Chapters on the establishment of San Francisco and Los Angeles, the Progressive era movements, the development of women's labor through time, and women gaining a role in governing make up for the pre-1848 weakness. The writers are careful to note the rise of parallel institutions (clubs, social service societies, etc.), such as those of Catholic and African American women, alongside the more visible WASP-based ones. They weave throughout the different opportunities for working and middle-class women. They spotlight notable organizers in many fields. The final chapter on the feminist wave of 1960s-80s discusses divisiveness among women's groups as well as their achievements.

Since this book was completed, a generation of young historians, men as well as women, have published scholarly studies on very specific subtopics of this history. Kevin Starr's series on California history pays homage at times in particular to elite women so significant in the development of cultural institutions or in support of women's causes. His book on World War II also appreciates the complex role of women at home and in the labor force. Yet the major college and high school texts neglect to write a comprehensive history where women are equal participants. Instead, there remains too much "add in" and "afterthought" asides, a "we won't forget the women" compensation of little value. Someone has to write an updated survey that incorporates this new material, because until then it is unlikely the textbook writers will improve their presentation.

Elizabeth Gunn, 1811-1906

I stayed at the Gunn house in Sonora several times before learning that its original owner had written about her travel to and life in California. She went around the Horn with four children in 1851 to join her husband Lewis, who had been mining for two years. He owned the local newspaper, and upset locals with his liberal views. In 1861 the family moved to San Francisco. In 1928, daughter Anna Lee Marston edited her father's journal and mother's letters into Letters of a California Family. This is one of the few documents to include three members of a family, for Marston adds her own remarks, with regard to settling the state.

Thanks to the Library of Congress, you can read the full book online.. It is part of a collection called California As I Saw It: First Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900. Gunn's writing is crisp and filled with anecdotes telling of the time's attitudes and daily life. Whenever you can, read original documents from a period of interest. This LOC site could keep you entertained for days!

I also recommend the Gunn House when you are visiting Route 49 and the Gold Country. It retains much of its adobe structure and its cozy rooms are furnished accordingly. The lounge/breakfast room is particularly inviting, and the breakfast buffet among the best you'll find at a B&B.

Maxine Crissman, "Lefty Lou"

Depression Californians brought a new music to the state, old timey hill tunes and style. Woody Guthrie is usually honored for playing the key role in introducing this format, but he was not alone. Guthrie settled in LA (not the farmlands) in 1937, where he met California-raised Crissman, an experienced singer, guitarist, and sax player. (His brother Jack had worked for her father and dated her for a while. During their lifetime, Jack actually gained much greater popularity than Woody as a performer.)

The duo were hired by a progressive radio owner, J. Frank Burke, to do daily programs on KFVD radio. Titled Woody and Lefty Lou, the pair introduced a wide variety of music, including old blackface minstrelsy, hillbilly, and public-domain folk ballads. Guthrie's lyrics to established tunes, including some by the Carter family, reached out to the working-class listening audience. Crissman's alto voice provided the lead, while Guthrie's higher voice offered harmony. The result was known as a "crossnote trademark."

Crissman and Guthrie used their own experiences to encourage listeners to realize they were part of a community. Populism ran through their songs, which grew increasingly political through attacks on political leaders and police who abused the migrants. They urged listeners to vote, to join political groups, to walk on picket lines. Outside the radio station they appeared at rallies in support of the Ham and Eggs Plan of Francis Townsend.

Crissman was on the show only two years. I have not been able to discover what she did afterwards. Anyone who knows, please tell me! Did she drop out of performing completely? This seems strange, given her popularity equal with Woody's at the time. Together they helped make country music an urban phenomenon, as well as contributed to populist pride among migrant Californians.