California’s first four assemblywomen began their historic tenure in 1919 in the state’s Forty-Third Session of the Legislature. They joined a growing number of women elected to state legislatures before ratification of the federal suffrage amendment. Entitled to run for office when enfranchised by the state in 1911, and elected in 1918, Esto Broughton (Stanislaus County), Grace Dorris (Kern County), Elizabeth Hughes (Butte County), and Anna Saylor (Alameda County) challenged the all-male exclusivity of the legislature by creating political space for women’s equal inclusion and bringing the value of their diversity as women into lawmaking. Intersectionality informs this history, because assemblywomen’s status as white, middle-class women enabled them to ally with men of similar status and to focus on progress for women of their race and class. Contributing to the history of early women in elective politics, and drawing on newspaper and state legislative records, this article explores how the assemblywomen downplayed their gender in self-presentation but focused on it in legislation. The first four women, moreover, voted on two amendments to the U.S. Constitution, beginning the legislative session with ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment and concluding the year with a vote for the Nineteenth Amendment. Their efforts as California’s first legislators solidified the value of women’s diversity in the legislature and, by voting to extend woman suffrage nationwide, they ensured women’s continued inclusion in elective politics.

This article examines the experiences of high school students, teachers, and administrators in the San Francisco Bay area during the antiwar movement of the Vietnam era. From 1965 to 1973, a vocal minority of high school students mounted a vigorous campaign of antiwar activism that demanded an immediate response from school officials. They constructed a unique interpretation of antiwar activity and the intensity of their activism generally reflected the movement at large. Drawing mostly from local dailies, high school newspapers, school district documents, and interviews, this article reveals that high schools in the San Francisco Bay area were politically contested battlegrounds during the antiwar movement.