Research Prospectus
On January 15, 1913, citizens of San Francisco crowded into the gymnasium of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in the city’s Oceanside district. Multiple female organizations, including the Susan B Anthony Club and the San Francisco Women’s Civic League, gathered in the brown shingled building in support of the Oceanside Women’s Club’s campaign to remove Police Judge Charles Weller from the bench. Their charge was Judge Weller’s continued mishandling of sexual assault cases resulting in little to no prison time for the accused.[1] “What we propose to do is to go after every police magistrate found lacking,” announced the Vice President of the Oceanside Women’s Club, Mrs. W.H. Campbell, “and to supplant them on the bench with men who know that issues involving the protection of girls and the safeguarding of the homes are issues that cannot down.”[2]
Until recently, the history of female antirape activism was largely thought to have begun during the 1970s with the Women’s Rights Movement. In her recent book, historian Catherine Jacquet states that since its inception, women’s history on antirape activism has remained focused on their work in the 1970s and the decades that followed. “The commonly told history of twentieth-century organizing against rape begins with 1970s feminism,” she explains, “giving the impression that white feminists had brought sexual violence out of hiding and, in effect, discovered rape as a major social problem.”[3] Although the history is not well documented, women had advocated, at times very loudly and very successfully, for rape law reform prior to the Women’s Rights Movement. Jacquet explains the reasons scholars credited the Women’s Rights Movement with uncovering this “shameful secret.” First, she asserts, women’s history as a field of study was in its infancy during the Women’s Rights Movement and, therefore, there was little coverage on sexual violence and women’s activism at the time. Second, during the civil rights era, feminists were the only group advocating for the rights of rape victims. The efforts were local; there was no national movement and so feminists believed their work was ground-breaking. While the 1970s Women’s Rights Movement did forge important new laws and rights for victims of rape, women’s activism for rape law reform in California existed transpired much earlier.
Empowered by the passage of the Women’s Suffrage Bill in 1911, San Francisco’s clubwomen advocated for the protection of women and girls from sexual violence. San Francisco’s conservative base and liquor trust successfully fought against the suffrage bill in the city, but urban women campaigned in the rural farming areas, which made up a bulk of the state, turning the vote in favor of female suffrage.[4] Despite San Francisco’s general lack of support for female suffrage, the women of the city mobilized quickly to flex their political muscle and to take up rape as one of their primary concerns. To accomplish their goal, female advocates began with the removal of Judge Weller, who showed a pattern of leniency towards men accused of rape. The recall campaign against Judge Weller evidences early twentieth century women’s activism to ensure the state’s rape laws, and the justice system as a whole, would keep sexual predators off the streets. Who were the fierce women behind Judge Weller’s campaign, who boldly fought against the city’s sitting judges and their allies? Was the 1913 campaign against Judge Weller the first organized effort for rape law reform in California? Prior to the 1950s, how often did women in California make efforts to organize for antirape measures and how did those legal reforms take shape? Finally, to what degree did early female activism influence antirape activism of the 1970s?
Legal and women’s historical scholarship will provide the foundation for this research project. It will require analysis of California penal codes and policies regarding sexual assault and rape, as well as an examination of old police sexual assault crime reports, subsequent trial records, and newspaper coverage of such events. For example, feminists in the 1970s were largely concerned with victims’ rights and rape shield laws, eventually enacted in 1985 under section 1103 of the California Evidence Code, which protected victims from further trauma and scrutiny during the trial process. However, victims’ rights were not a new concern in the 1970s, as newspaper evidence reveals women decades prior were troubled by how courts scrutinized the character of rape victims as a method of determining degree of resistance and consent. Further research of appellate and county court decisions, jury trials, crime statistics, crime reports, newspapers, speeches, correspondence, and club meeting minutes will be needed.
Historical research on women’s agency and rape laws is relevant to California’s current political climate and to the education of the state’s voters. Earlier this year, Senator Anna Caballero introduced Senate Bill 1386 to strengthen California’s historic Rape Shield Law, a bill currently in congressional review.[5] The bill is supported by numerous organizations, including California Woman’s Law Center and the America Association of University of Women, California. Sexual Assault and rape laws remain a crucial part of women’s rights advocacy and knowing the history of the legislation around those crimes enables California, and the nation as a whole, to cultivate balanced and just laws.
[1] “Women Launch the Weller Recall in Tempest Anger: Girl’s Dramatic Accusation at Great Mass Meeting Crushes Judge’s Defense,” San Francisco Examiner, January 15, 1913.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Catherine O. Jacquet, The Injustice of Rape: How Activists Responded to Sexual Violence, 1950-1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019) 9.
[4] Gertrude Atherton, California: An Intimate History (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1914) 327.
[5] Senator Anna Caballero, “New Press Release,” Democratic Caucus, California State Senate. https://sd14.senate.ca.gov/news/press-release/sb-1386-strengthens-californias-historic-rape-shield-law-and-heightens-legal
Northern California History 
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