Laura de Force Gordon (1838-1907):

Laura de Force Gordon was a well known trial lawyer in Califormia. In 1871 she declared herself a candidate for state senator to represent a district of San Joaquin county. She received over 200 votes in the race. In 1887 Gordan was nominated, but decline to run for state Attorney General. Gordan was also president of the State Suffrage League and active in suffrage politics nationally and through the western part of the country. She was instrumental in insuring that the California state constitution did not bar women from the state university system, or from any business or profession.

Party Affiliation:
Independent (1871 race); United Labor Party (1886 race)

Photographs:

And photograph: Library of Congress no. LC USZ 62 50402

Resources:
Women’s Legal History Biography Project
http://womenslegalhistory.stanford.edu/profiles/GordonLaura.html

"Woman's Sphere From A Woman's Standpoint." by Mrs. Laura De Force Gordon.
Publication: Eagle, Mary Kavanaugh Oldham, ed. The Congress of Women: Held in the Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U. S. A., 1893.. Chicago, ILL: Monarch Book Company, 1894. pp. 74-76.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/eagle/congress/gordon.html

Laura De Force Gordon: Fragments of a Feminist Pioneer
by Renee F. Hawkins, 1997
http://womenslegalhistory.stanford.edu/papers/GordonL-Hawkins97.pdf

"Mrs. Gordon's Letter of Acceptance," The New Northwest (Aug. 11, 1871); "Political," Lockport Daily Journal, August 19, 1871, p. 2, col 2
California Women: A Guide to Their Politics, 1885-1911, Reda Davis, San Francisco, CA: California Scene, 1967.

Laura de Force Gordon" The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time, By James Terry White, Published by J.T. White, 1895, p. 235.

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