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FOR WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH:
Some Notable Women in Los Angeles History
Women in Los Angeles County History

A list of some notable women in Los Angeles County history.

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Our Story in Pictures
Socialist Women in Los Angeles Jail, 1908

From the George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress.

1908. Pictured are socialist activists in Los Angeles city jail. They are (order in photo undetermined) Mrs. Dorothea Johns of Los Angeles (a former Polish countess and friend, with her husband, of novelist Jack London), Mrs. Alice V. Holloway of Pasadena, Mrs. Berta M. Dailey of Los Angeles, and Mrs. Helen A. Collins of Los Angeles. That year, members of the Socialist Party in Los Angeles challenged city ordinances that barred any public meetings and speakers who lacked a permit issued by the ardently anti-union, anti-socialist police commission. Salvation Army preachers were routinely granted permits to speak in public, but unionists and socialists were not. On July 1, 1908, thousands of socialists gathered at 7th and Grand in Downtown Los Angeles to demonstrate against the unfair treatment. Police promptly arrested the local Socialist Party leader. Demonstrations persisted, including a march down Broadway to city hall, resulting in yet more arrests (including the women pictured here). Although the Democratic Party did not politically align with the socialists, they joined the demonstrations, seeing the issues at stake being free speech and assembly. In the month that followed, jail and court calendars had become so clogged that the city council was forced to repeal the permit ordinance. This victory for socialists brought them new political respectability, at the time, as defenders of constitutional rights.

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Did You Know?
Young Women Dance, Easter, Love-In, Elysian Park, Los Angeles, 1970

For five years, Los Angeles saw a counter-culture Easter Day gathering at Elysian Park.

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