Photo: Selina Solomons, from How We Won the Vote in California: A True Story of the Campaign of 1911 by Selina Solomons, image courtesy of California Historical Society (PAM 10563)
Selina Solomons was a Sephardic Jew from a middle-class family in San Francisco. She is best known for her dedicated leadership in the fight for women’s suffrage and the crucial role she played in California women finally achieving this right in 1911.
In 1910, Solomons established the Votes for Women Club in downtown San Francisco. The club aimed to spread the idea of suffrage to women outside of the affluent leisure class by providing meals and educating working-class women about the suffrage movement. It was a successful venture, and the suffrage movement continued to gain momentum. However, as Solomons later wrote in How We Won The Vote in California, convincing people to support the cause was not always easy.
