Gordon, Laura de Force

Biography

Laura de Force Gordon— journalist, lawyer and suffragette—was born in Erie County, Pennsylvania on August 17, 1838. In 1862 she married Dr. Charles H. Gordon of Scotland, followed him to New Orleans where he was stationed during the Civil War, and subsequently traveled with him to Nevada in 1867 and to Lodi, California in 1870.

Prior to her marriage Mrs. Gordon had lectured on spiritualism on the east coast, and continued her lectures when she moved west. An early advocate of women's rights, she was instrumental in founding the California Woman Suffrage Society in 1870, serving as its president in 1877 and from 1884 to 1894. She also lectured widely in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington Territory on behalf of the movement. In 1871, nominated for state senator in San Joaquin County by the Independent Party, she received some two hundred votes.

Her journalistic career appeared to have begun in 1873, when she wrote a column for the Stockton Narrow Gauge, a semi-weekly. Later that year she edited and published the Stockton Weekly Leader, which became a daily in 1874, and which she sold in 1875. Moving to Oakland, she edited the Oakland Daily Democrat until 1878, and in her editorial capacity championed women's rights and the Democratic party. In 1877 she played an important role in lobbying for the passage of a landmark bill, first drafted by Clara Shortridge Foltz, permitting women to practice law in California. The two women collaborated again in successfully appealing to the California Supreme Court a case against the Hastings College of Law which denied them official admission. The case made legal history, and the two women were admitted to the California Bar in December 1879. Mrs. Gordon maintained a law office first in San Francisco, and later moved to Stockton.

An eloquent speaker, she vigorously campaigned in the California mining country on behalf of the Democratic Party in 1888 and 1890, and in Nebraska and Utah in 1892. Always an ardent feminist, Mrs. Gordon twice served as delegate, to the National Woman Suffrage Association, and with Susan B. Anthony appealed at the Liberal Republican Convention in 1872 for adoption of a suffrage plank. She retired to manage her farm near Lodi in 1901, and died there at the age of sixty-eight, on April 5, 1907.

From the guide to the Laura Gordon papers, [ca. 1852-1882], (The Bancroft Library)