Sarah Knox-Goodrich

Sarah L. Knox-Goodrich (1825–1903) was a women's rights activist who worked for women's suffrage in California in the late nineteenth century. Her first husband, William Knox, was a business man, banker, and state politician. Her second husband, Levi Goodrich, was an architect in Southern California. Knox-Goodrich used her wealth and her social position to push for equal employment, school suffrage, and voting rights.

Sarah Knox-Goodrich
Born
Sarah Louise Browning

(1825-02-14)February 14, 1825
Culpepper County, Virginia, U.S.
DiedOctober 30, 1903(1903-10-30) (aged 76–77)
San Jose, California, U.S.
OccupationSuffragist and women's rights activist

Biography

Sarah Louise Browning was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, U.S., on February 14, 1825,[1] the daughter of William Winston Browning and Sarah Smith Farrow.[2] When Sarah was 11, her family moved to a farm in Lincoln County, Missouri.[1]

Marriage to William James Knox

Sarah Browning married William J. Knox on April 1, 1846.[3] On April 12, 1850, they left Missouri, together with Sarah's sister, and traveled by wagon train to Nevada City, California where Knox made a fortune. [4]

In 1862, the Knox's moved to San Francisco and then to San Jose in 1864. Knox and his brother-in-law, E. Ellard Beans, opened Santa Clara County's first bank in 1866; it was called Knox & Beans, Bankers, then renamed Bank of San Jose. Knox served as the bank's first president.[4]

Knox died in San Francisco on November 13, 1867.[5] William and Sarah had one child, Virginia, who married Cabel H. Maddox of San Francisco. Maddox was elected to the state senate in 1882.[6]

Marriage to Levi Goodrich

Levi Goodrich was born in New York City on January 1, 1822.[7] He studied architecture in the studio of R. G. Hatfield in New York before moving to San Jose in 1849.[8] Goodrich was one of the first licensed architects in California. The buildings he designed include the Santa Clara County Courthouse and jail,[9] the State Normal School,[10] the Bank of San Jose, and the courthouses of Monterey and San Diego counties.[7][8]

Sarah Knox and Goodrich married on January 15, 1879, and Sarah adopted a hyphenated form of both husband's names, Knox-Goodrich.[11][1] Goodrich died in 1886 in San Diego.[12]

Suffragist activities

Knox-Goodrich had wealth and social position, and used them both in state campaigns for equal employment, school suffrage, protests of taxation without representation, and voting rights.[13][14] Clara Shortridge Foltz, the first female lawyer on the West Coast, said of her, "Mrs. Knox is a widow of commanding personal appearance, an abundance of bank stock, and a wealth of . . . common sense, which she displayed at the polls on last Wednesday by protesting against 'taxation without representation.'"[15]

Knox-Goodrich worked with her first husband in getting the Senate Bill 252 passed in the state legislature.[16] In 1869, she organized San Jose's first Women's Suffrage Association; by 1876, it had 200 members.[16][13] On the Fourth of July in 1876, Knox, "determined to make a manifestation", filled her carriage with prominent friends carrying signs that read "We are the disfranchised Class", "We are Taxed without being Represented", and "We are governed without our Consent".[17] She had requested a position at the back of the parade, next to the African-Americans but ahead of the Chinese immigrants, as an illustration of women's legal position, but the parade organizers insisted on her carriage being placed at the front.[17]

In 1874, Knox-Goodrich spearheaded a bill making women eligible to run for educational office, such as school boards, even though they could not vote. She, and her co-lobbyists, traveled to Sacramento and stayed there for a month, supporting the passage of the bill in the State Assembly.[13][18] In 1877, Knox-Goodrich nominated herself for an Assembly seat.[17] In 1880, she petitioned the Assembly for relief from political disabilities:[19]

I, Sarah L. Knox-Goodrich, a citizen of the United States, a resident of the State of California, City of San José, County of Santa Clara, hereby respectfully petition your honorable body for the removal of her political disabilities, that she may exercise her right to vote, all State constitutions and statute laws to the contrary notwithstanding. Your petitioner respectfully represents that she is a real estate owner, paying heavy taxes annually for public improvements, and of the support of a government in which she has no representation....

— January 22, 1880

The petition failed.

Knox-Goodrich was an officer in the California Suffrage Constitutional Amendment Campaign Association (formed in 1895) and the joint campaign committee (formed in 1896).[20][21] Both committees were formed to direct and support the campaign to amend the California state constitution, giving women the vote. Knox-Goodrich hosted Susan B. Anthony at her home, and then accompanied Anthony to Sacramento as a member of the woman suffrage delegation for the state Republican convention.[21][14]

In addition to these activities, Knox-Goodrich donated money to women's rights causes. In 1888, she donated money for the founding meeting of the International Council of Women.[14] She gave $100 to help clear the debt from the 1895 women's suffrage campaign and $500 to fund the 1896 constitutional amendment campaign.[22][21] She also contributed to travel and expenses of other women working for women's suffrage. In 1889, Knox-Goodrich and Ellen Clark Sargent paid for Laura de Force Gordon, a journalist and leader of the California Women's Suffrage Society, to give a series of lectures in the Washington Territory.[17]

Knox-Goodrich was a frequent contributor to Women's Journal, the San Jose Mercury, and the New Northwest.[13]

Knox-Goodrich Building
Knox-Goodrich Building
Location34 South 1st Street, San Jose, California, U.S.
Coordinates37°20′8.17″N 121°53′23.05″W
Built1889
ArchitectGeorge W. Page
Architectural styleRichardsonian Romanesque
Part ofDowntown Historic District (San Jose, California) (ID83003822 [23])
Added to NRHPMay 26, 1983

Knox-Goodrich commissioned a building on property left to her by her first husband. The building, designed by George W. Page, was commercial on the first floor and a rooming house on the second and third floors. Its Romanesque Revival features include rusticated masonry walls, massive stone piers, carved stone detailing, and Byzantine capitals. There is a parapet over the third-floor windows with a carved 'G' and a 'K' intertwined, and the date '1889' is carved over the second story windows.[24]

A plaque on the building states,[25]

This charming commercial structure was built in 1889 by Sarah Knox-Goodrich on property left to her by her first husband, Dr. William Knox, using sandstone from the quarry owned by her second husband, Levi Goodrich. Both men were important San Jose citizens: Knox, with his brother-in-law T. Ellard Beans, established San Jose's first bank; Goodrich was the architect of the Santa Clara County Courthouse. Sarah Knox-Goodrich, a strong advocate of women's rights, organized San Jose's first Women's Suffrage Association in 1869. She died in 1903 and was buried between her two husbands at Oak Hill Cemetery

In addition to the Knox-Goodrich Building, the Goodrich quarry provided stone for the construction of Stanford University[12][26] and an early San Jose City Hall.[27]

Knox-Goodrich died on October 30, 1903, at her home, leaving an estate worth more than $500,000.[28] She is buried between her two husbands.[29]

See also

References
  1. Munro-Fraser 1881, pp. 767–769
  2. Johnston, Elizabeth Bryant (1896). Lineage Book - Daughters of the American Revolution. Washington, D. C.: National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. p. 231. Archived from the original on 2018-03-04.
  3. Munro-Fraser 1881, pp. 765–767
  4. Goodman, Hattie S. (1905). The Knox Family: A Genealogical and Biographical Sketch of the Descendants of John Knox of Rowan County, North Carolina, and Other Knoxes. Richmond, Virginia: Whittet & Shepperson. pp. 132–133.
  5. "JoinCalifornia - William J. Knox". www.joincalifornia.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-13. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  6. "JoinCalifornia - C. H. Maddox". www.JoinCalifornia.com. Archived from the original on 2015-10-02. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  7. "Death of Levi Goodrich". Daily Alta California. April 6, 1887. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  8. Munro-Fraser 1881, pp. 759–760
  9. "Old Courthouse History - The Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara". www.scscourt.org. Archived from the original on 2017-06-12. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  10. "The Los Angeles Normal School — Los Angeles Herald 9 September 1881 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". Los Angeles Herald. September 9, 1881. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  11. "Married". The New Northwest. Portland, Oregon. March 6, 1879. p. 2. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved September 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "San Jose loses an old resident". San Francisco Call. October 31, 1903. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  13. Barbara Allen Babcck (1994). "Clara Shortridge Foltz: "First Woman"". Valparaiso University Law Review. 28 (4): 1231–1285. Archived from the original on July 7, 2017. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
  14. Gordon, Ann D. (January 10, 2013). The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: An Awful Hush, 1895 to 1906. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-8135-5345-0.
  15. "Letter from San Jose". The New Northwest. September 6, 1875. Archived from the original on March 4, 2018.
  16. "Connecting People Through News". www.pressreader.com. July 4, 2013. Archived from the original on March 4, 2018. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
  17. Mead, Rebecca (January 1, 2006). How the Vote Was Won: Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868-1914. New York, New York. pp. 23–24. ISBN 978-0-8147-5991-2. Archived from the original on March 4, 2018.
  18. "Editorial correspondence". The New Northwest. Portland, Oregon. April 3, 1874. p. 2. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved September 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. The Journal of the Assembly during the Twenty-third Session of the Legislature of the State of California. Sacramento, California: Sup't State Printing. 1880. p. 207. Archived from the original on 2018-03-04.
  20. "Active campaign begins". The San Francisco Call. May 28, 1895. p. 4. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved September 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. Harper, Ida Husted (1898). "The California Campaign". The life and work of Susan B. Anthony: including public addresses, her own letters and many from her contemporaries during fifty years. Indianapolis, Indiana: The Bowen-Merrill company. pp. 863–893.
  22. "Women Workers' final rally". The San Francisco Call. November 7, 1896. p. 14. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved September 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 15, 2006.
  24. "Exploring San Jose Landmarks" (PDF). Preservation.org. San Jose, California: Preservation Action Council of San Jose. Winter 2012. pp. 20–21. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-10-29. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  25. "Sarah Knox-Goodrich and her namesake San Jose building". The Mercury News. July 3, 2013. Archived from the original on April 30, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  26. "Distinctive Documents". Los Angeles Daily Herald. July 22, 1887. Archived from the original on March 4, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
  27. Halberstadt, April Hope (August 25, 2016). "The German Community in San Jose" (PDF). Sourisseau Academy for State and Local History. p. 7. Retrieved July 3, 2018.
  28. "Will of Mrs. Goodrich". The Los Angeles Times. November 7, 1903. p. 3. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved September 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. "Deaths of the day". Los Angeles Herald. October 31, 1903. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.

Sources
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