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| 1913 Suffrage March on Washington , D.C. Source: Library of Congress |
Unfortunately, there are no photographs of the first woman elected to public office in Long Beach which is probably why she has been neglected.
Eva Guy Strong was elected to the Long Beach Board of
Education, receiving 252 votes of the total 302 cast. The turnout was the
lowest in the voting history of the city.
Her candidacy is credited to the “agitation
among parent-teacher associations of the city to have a woman member elected to
the Board of Education.”
The Los Angeles Times reported on
March 16, 1913 that during a meeting of the presidents of the associations:
The ladies all pledged their hearty
support of her candidacy and believe that she can be elected ‘hands
down.’ Mrs. Strong has for years been an active worker in club,
social and educational lines and is generally popular.
Eva (Mrs. Edwin Norman Strong) was originally from
Salem, Ohio and was the great-granddaughter of James Johnson who served as a
private in 1776 in Captain Strawbridge’s Company.
She held leadership positions in the Daughters of the
American Revolution and the National Congress of Mothers. The mother of three
sons, she served as the President of the Long Beach Federation of
Parent-Teachers Associations prior to her election. She also liked to
sing at social events. Census data shows that she was an “apartment manager” by
occupation. She also raised the prize “White Wyandotte” chickens on
her property at Signal Hill.
A letter signed by all the presidents of the PTA’s was
sent to the Long Beach Telegram which published it on March
17, 1913 calling for election. Women were thought to be more suited for
election to school boards and several states passed suffrage just for those
elections.
The Board of Education met at room 506 of the National
Bank Building, northeast corner of First and Pine, where her husband, Edwin,
worked as an “Escrow Officer.”
When first elected, she outlined for the Los
Angeles Times on May 12, 1913, her ideas for the schools with a news
article titled: “Lady Has A Plan.” Strong called for the grounds of
the three downtown schools, Pine, Daisy and Atlantic, to be turned into “playgrounds
and equipped as such during the summer vacation.” She thought it
important to keep the children away from the beach where they were “at
the mercy of all sinister influences.”
Eva served on a variety of School Board committees:
Finance and Salary; Buildings, grounds and janitors; and Rules, regulations and
supplies. She strongly supported “night school for Mexicans” so
that they could become citizens.
In 1914, Eva launched a program to encourage school
children to grow vegetables at school and home. She arranged for both flower
and vegetable seeds to be provided to the children from John Childs,
an “eastern millionaire” who owned a seed and bulb growing
farm and was also on his local board of education.
She recognized that many of the problems dealt with in
juvenile court were caused by the lack of education by the parents. She
advocated for the establishment of “parental schools.”
One of her most interesting ideas was to turn
over “charity work” to the city instead of it being handled by
the Associated Charities organization. Strong appeared before the City Council
in 1914 and lectured on what she had learn working with charitable
organizations:
There are three classes of people whom the
charity organizations are especially called to help. One
class is made up of families where the breadwinner is ill or otherwise unfitted
for work, and the family income is shut off. Another class is made up
of persons who come here with the idea that this is a ‘land of milk and honey’
and the are not properly fortified with funds to tide them over in case
they do not find employment immediately, while still another class is made up
of the ‘floating population’ which thinks that the ‘world owes them
a living.’ It is the latter class which gives the most trouble to charitable
organizations.
Strong explained to the city council that churches,
lodges and other organizations are “serving the same people.” She
argued that the work needed to be “centralized.” The
Council voted to approve her idea.
Eva served on the Board of Education until 1916. She
was replaced by another woman, June McNee. She became active in Republican
politics and was elected as a delegate to the 70th Assembly District.
Her husband engaged in real estate development and
built a four-unit building at 945 Pine Avenue where the family lived until Eva
passed in 1948.
