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Caption: "The Alameda of Presidio," c. 1910. Established in 1776 by Spanish explorers, the Presidio is a fortified location overlooking the Golden Gate, the entrance into San Francisco Bay. It was closed as a military structure in 1995, and is now a park within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Date: 1910

Elite

Date: 1884

Caption: "Bennington Memorial, Fort Rosecrans." This photograph shows lines of U.S. Navy sailors in dress uniform at a memorial service for the victims of the USS Bennington's boiler explosion. The hump of a large mass grave can be seen to the left of center.

Date: 1905

Bulletin from E. Raymond Cato to All Members of the California Highway Patrol regarding procedures pertaining to curfews, permits, and prohibited articles

Date: April 14, 1942

Pamphlet on Attorney General Earl Warren's leadership in war preparation before the events at Pearl Harbor in comparison to Culbert Olson

Date: Undated

The Boss

Date: 1882

Office memorandum from Margaret Billings to Margaret S. Watkins regarding Contra Costa Defense Council

Date: January 5, 1942

Correspondence from C. J. Carey to R. I. French regarding licenses and Japanese in California

Date: January 28, 1942

Pioneer Mills Best Roller Flour

Date: 1885

A Brief of Respondent is filed in the appellate court by the party who won in the previous trial and defends the lower court’s original decision. Ellen Van Valkenburg began an important legal battle for women’s enfranchisement in California on July 21, 1871, when she requested that Santa Cruz County Clerk Albert Brown enter her name in the Great Register of voters. After Brown (a willing accomplice in helping her bring the case to court) refused to register her, Van Valkenburg and her lawyer, Santa Cruz Judge Albert Hagan, began legal proceedings by requesting a writ of mandamus, a judicial remedy used to compel agencies to perform ministerial acts, such as registering voters. Van Valkenburg and Hagan argued her case by citing the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The new amendment, ratified 3 years earlier in 1868, defined all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. as citizens protected by civil rights. Van Valkenburg and Hagan asserted that American women were considered citizens under this amendment, and that citizenship automatically granted absolute rights, including the right to vote. The case first went to California’s Third District Court. Many of America’s most prominent suffragists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, were with Van Valkenburg in Santa Cruz when the lower court ruled against her on August 16, 1871. Van Valkenburg and Hagan swiftly appealed this decision through the Supreme Court of California. In the end, the Supreme Court of California upheld the lower court’s verdict under the reasoning that as a white American woman, Van Valkenburg already had citizenship and civil rights prior to the passage of the 14th amendment, and that the 14th amendment did not provide her with any additional political rights, such as the right to vote. While Van Valkenburg lost her case, and subsequent lawsuits failed to secure women's suffrage nationwide, the case stands as a critical early example of legal advocacy for women's political rights in California.

Date: October 2, 1871