Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Augusta Jones, 1860-1925
By Thomas Dublin, Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Binghamton University
Augusta Deutsch was born in New York in about 1860, daughter of Julius and Henrietta Deutsch. She married English-born Joel Jones in 1891, a wholesale merchant according to the 1900 census of San Francisco. At that date they had one living child, Gerald, eight years old. Joel Jones died in 1903, leaving Augusta a widow at 43. In 1910 Augusta resided in San Francisco with her father, two unmarried sisters, and her son Gerald. In 1920, she continued to live in San Francisco with her sisters, Eva and Fannie Deutsch. She had no listed occupation in any of these censuses. We find no links to Augusta in the San Francisco censuses of 1930 and 1940.
Our first evidence of Augusta's suffrage activity comes in an October 1909 article in the San Francisco Call that lists Augusta and her sister Eva Deutsch as members of the San Francisco Equal Suffrage League. In 1911, the year of California's successful suffrage campaign, Augusta and others in the College Equal Suffrage League canvassed voters in the 39th assembly district in San Francisco. Her activism continued over the next nine years that lead to passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1912 she was elected as an auditor of the California State Equal Suffrage Association. In November 1916 she sat on the stage during a mass meeting honoring activists of the National Woman's Party, who had just completed a campaign tour across the state. Newspaper accounts also note her continued support in June 1919 for ratification of the 19th Amendment by the California state legislature.
Her interest in suffrage continued after the formal adoption of the 19th Amendment and she served as Chairman of Registration for the San Francisco Center. In that capacity she wrote a letter, published in November 2, 1923, thanking the San Francisco Chronicle for its support of the "recent campaign for increased registration, especially among women voters." She wrote on behalf of her committee members, all six of whom were women.
Augusta passed away in San Francisco in 1925.
Sources:
"Chapter IV: California." History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. 6: 1900-1920, edited by Ida Husted Harper. New York, NY: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1922, pp. 39-40. [LINK]
U.S. Federal Manuscript Census, San Francisco, 1900-1930, households of Joel Jones (1900), Julius Deutsch (1910), and Eva Deutsch (1920 and 1930). Accessed online via Ancestry Library Edition.
Selina Solomons, How We Won the Vote: A True Story of the Campaign of 1911 (San Francisco: New Woman Publishing Co., [1912]). pp. 25 and 39.
"Women To Do Plain Politics in This State," San Francisco Call, 1 October 1909, p. 4.
"Women Urged to Register, San Francisco Call, 23 July 1912, p. 11.
"Retailers' Fair Helps Vote Seekers," San Francisco Call, 17 August 1911, p. 5.
"Equal Suffrage Association Will Be Continued," San Francisco Examiner, 7 January 1912, p. 10.
Augusta Jones, "'Weaker' Sex Shows Strength to Fight World Battle," San Francisco Call, 10 Sept. 1911, p. 29.
"Registration Body Praises Chronicle Aid," San Francisco Chronicle, 2 November 1923, p. 3.
"Notice to Creditors [of Augusta Jones]," The Recorder (San Francisco, CA), 3 September 1925, p. 12.
"Notice to Creditors [of Joel Jones]," The Recorder (San Francisco, CA), 9 September 1903, p. 3.