Sarah
Knox Goodrich

BIO:

In 1869, Sarah Knox-Goodrich organized San José’s first Women’s Suffrage Association, which had 200 members by 1876. Knox-Goodrich was a women’s rights activist who worked for women’s suffrage in California in the late nineteenth century. She used her wealth and her social position to push for equal employment, school suffrage, and voting rights. Married to the State Senator, Knox-Goodrich worked with her first husband in getting Senate Bill 252 passed in the state legislature. The Senate Bill that gave married women the right to control their own estate. On the Fourth of July in 1876, Knox-Goodrich, “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”. She continued her efforts at the state level by spearheading a bill making women eligible to run for education office. In 1889, Knox-Goodrich commissioned a building on property left to her by her first husband which still stands today at 34 South 1st Street in San José, California.