Laura de Force Gordon
| Laura de Force Gordon | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Laura de Force August 17, 1838 Pennsylvania |
| Died | April 5, 1907 (aged 68) Lodi, California |
| Occupation | Lawyer and women's-rights advocate |
| Known for | Second female lawyer in California; first female publisher of a US daily newspaper |
Laura de Force Gordon (née Laura de Force; August 17, 1838, North East, Pennsylvania – April 5, 1907, Lodi, California) was a California lawyer, newspaper publisher, and a prominent suffragette. She was the first woman to run a daily newspaper in the United States (the Stockton Daily Leader, 1874), and the second female lawyer admitted to practice in California.
As an activist, Gordon was a key proponent of the Women’s Lawyers Bill allowing women to practice law in California, and the related section of the California Constitution allowing women to practice any profession.
Laura de Force was born in Pennsylvania to Abram de Force and Catherine Doolittle Allen. The family had nine children, and the father struggled with rheumatism, but the children (including at least two daughters) received education in the public schools.
After the death of one of the children, the family turned to Spiritualism in 1855. Laura toured the Northeast giving public speeches and exhibitions, starting as young as 15, including a speech in Boston at age 18. During one such event, she met a Scottish physician named Charles H. Gordon, and married him in 1862. They moved west gradually, first to New Orleans (where he was posted during the Civil War), then to Nevada, and finally settling in California in 1870.
In 1873 Gordon became an editor and reporter for the Stockton Narrow Gauge. In 1874, she bought the Stockton Weekly Leader and converted into a daily newspaper, becoming the first female publisher of a paper in the US. Between 1876 and 1878, she published the Oakland Daily Democrat, after which she left journalism.
Before 1878, she divorced her husband on grounds of adultery, later referring to herself frequently as a widow rather than a divorcée.
Spiritualism emphasized egalitarianism and equality between the sexes. Perhaps as a result, in the late 1860s, Gordon's speaking career turned from Spiritualism to women's rights. Her February 19, 1868 speech in San Francisco, titled "The Elective Franchise: Who Shall Vote", is believed to be the first in California on the suffrage movement, and in 1870 helped found the California Women’s Suffrage Society. In 1870, she gave more than 100 speeches on suffrage, and in 1872 was California's representative to the meeting of the National Women's Suffrage Association in New York City. She also worked for suffrage in Nevada, speaking throughout the state in the late 1860s and in front of the state legislature in 1871.
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