Posted on Dec 3, 2023
Remembering the first female mayor of Troutdale, Oregon
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110 years ago, voters elected part-Indigenous community activist Clara Latourell Larsson as Oregon’s second female mayor — just one year after women achieved the right to vote statewide.
Troutdale is known today as the gateway to the Columbia River Gorge, a quaint city marking for passersby where the Portland metro ends and the great outdoors begin.
Stop at Mayors Square in its historic downtown, however, and Troutdale’s little-known feminist past is plainly and proudly visible. Gazing across the city is a life-size bronze monument in honor of former mayor Clara Latourell Larsson.
Troutdale is known today as the gateway to the Columbia River Gorge, a quaint city marking for passersby where the Portland metro ends and the great outdoors begin.
Stop at Mayors Square in its historic downtown, however, and Troutdale’s little-known feminist past is plainly and proudly visible. Gazing across the city is a life-size bronze monument in honor of former mayor Clara Latourell Larsson.
Remembering the first female mayor of Troutdale, Oregon
Posted from opb.org
Troutdale
American History
Gender
Portland
Native Americans
Posted 5 mo ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Rural Gender Parity
Female political successes in an early 20th century frontier Oregon town might seem surprising.
Yet historians like Helen Wand suggest that female leadership was more prevalent in rural settings like early Troutdale than in urban settings around the United States.
“These women came with the men to the frontier, worked beside them and were able to prove their abilities,” Wand says. “They had no way to do that in the Eastern towns.”
The earliest victories of the suffragist movement reflects some of that observation.
Wyoming, Colorado and Idaho, the states where women first won the vote, had large rural populations. This pattern holds up to Oregon’s suffrage election win in 1912. Racial barriers to voting persisted longer for non-white Oregonian women, however.
Although there are no writings suggesting Clara Latourell Larsson considered herself a suffragist, she nevertheless left a quiet record of civic duty that continued after she left the mayor’s office — as a Troutdale city councilwoman.
Larsson died on June 23, 1939. Written at the base of her bronze monument: “First woman mayor of Troutdale — 1914. 25 years leading her community.” She simply never stopped serving her windswept city at the mouth of the Gorge."
..."Rural Gender Parity
Female political successes in an early 20th century frontier Oregon town might seem surprising.
Yet historians like Helen Wand suggest that female leadership was more prevalent in rural settings like early Troutdale than in urban settings around the United States.
“These women came with the men to the frontier, worked beside them and were able to prove their abilities,” Wand says. “They had no way to do that in the Eastern towns.”
The earliest victories of the suffragist movement reflects some of that observation.
Wyoming, Colorado and Idaho, the states where women first won the vote, had large rural populations. This pattern holds up to Oregon’s suffrage election win in 1912. Racial barriers to voting persisted longer for non-white Oregonian women, however.
Although there are no writings suggesting Clara Latourell Larsson considered herself a suffragist, she nevertheless left a quiet record of civic duty that continued after she left the mayor’s office — as a Troutdale city councilwoman.
Larsson died on June 23, 1939. Written at the base of her bronze monument: “First woman mayor of Troutdale — 1914. 25 years leading her community.” She simply never stopped serving her windswept city at the mouth of the Gorge."
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