In her fascinating study of the nearly 500 women who ran for elective office in California between 1912 and 1970, Linda Van Ingen reveals both the consistent determination of women to serve in electoral offices and the strategies they devised to succeed. Perhaps most important, she argues that one of the reasons electoral politics has proven such a hard nut for women to crack is that female aspirants to political office have not known the long history of women’s engagement in the electoral arena and so have had constantly to reinvent the wheel. Gendered Politics is an important antidote to this crippling historical amnesia.

Robyn Muncy, University of Maryland

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, Linda Van Ingen’s Gendered Politics is timely indeed. She reminds us that, whether they won or lost, Republican or Democrat, California women have been running for office for over a century. With its new record of three female U. S. Senators, and the first female Speaker of the House, Van Ingen shows us the often bumpy but historic journey of how women redefined the political sphere in the Golden State.

Jacqueline R. Braitman, Historian, Independent Scholar

This important study of California women’s political activities will help eradicate the belief that women did not seek and did not find political power until the 1970s. Based on voluminous research in a wide range of archival sources and grounded in recent scholarship in women’s political history, Van Ingen’s book tells a compelling story of California women’s continuous struggle for greater political inclusion and shows how over the course of six decades women candidates and office-holders became agents for political change in their state and the nation. California women have long deserved this exploration into how women’s campaign strategies influenced the state’s political history.

Melanie Gustafson, University of Vermont

Van Ingen’s book is a welcomed addition to the field of women’s political history. By looking at Democratic, Republican, and third party candidates over such a broad swath of time, this book allows us to see the full range of gendered obstacles and strategies that women across the political perspective have encountered and pursued. The book is rich in detail and well-argued.

Catherine Rymph, University of Missouri