This year we celebrate a century since the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Though it would be more than a generation before ALL american women citizens could vote - the women's suffrage movement was the culmination of decades of momentum towards rights for women. Many women leaders with strong voices and articulate minds poured themselves into the movement. These women found intellectual stimulation, social connection and personal empowerment and we celebrate them. Here's to the women who kept pushing and to those who keep pushing now. May we never rest until ALL women and ALL human beings are treated with dignity and equality.
The movement for women’s right to vote began gathering momentum in the 1840s. By 1867 the common sunflower Helianthus annuus, was adopted as a symbol. Early women leaders found a voice in an effort that was victorious with the passage of the 19th Amendment in August, 1920.
How poetic that these buttons that were worn on dresses over corsets in the era of this struggle - are now worn by modern women who inherited the legacy of their struggle and carry the movement forward. Cast in recycled bronze, they are ready for modern life with water and parenting and sand and sea.
Our Sunflower Collection celebrates women in history. Handmade from Victorian buttons from the 1880s cast in recycled bronze.
Let's talk about Sara Plummer Lemmon. The California poppy’s greatest advocate was Sara Plummer Lemmon, born in 1836. She was an artist, teacher, nurse, librarian, botanist and lover of the outdoors.
Largely through her efforts. the California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) became state flower in 1903. The occasion was celebrated through the creation of souvenir silver spoons - especially for the 1915 California Pan-Pacific Exposition held in San Francisco and San Diego.
English Botanist Ellen Willmott, born in 1854, was among the first women active in the Royal Horticultural Society. At Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, she was one of only two women to receive the Victorian Medal of Honour. She was headstrong and clever and dedicated almost beyond reason to botany and her garden. She financed many plant collecting expeditions during the Victorian era and as a result numerous species - including a beautiful wild rose are named in her honor.
Willmott always collected the first bouquet of snowdrops every season to send to her sister.
Hard won. Not done.