President Theodore Roosevelt George W. Bush
State equality and discrimination bills
United States LGBT History for 1906
Oregon
Marie Equi is touted in Oregon press for her heroic response in Portland’s relief mission to victims of the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The California governor and San Francisco mayor praise her work; the US Army awards her a medal. She becomes Oregon’s first publicly acclaimed LGBTQ hero.
In late May, Marie Equi is entangled in front-page scandal involving her girlfriend, Harriet Speckart (an Olympia Brewery heiress), and the Speckart family over a family inheritance. In an allusion to their lesbian relationship, Equi is accused of wielding a mysterious, hypnotic power that alienated the younger woman from the affections of her family.
Marie Equi works in the Oregon woman suffrage campaign to obtain the right to vote for women. The effort, the fifth time the measure went before voters, was defeated.
Marie Equi mounts a short-lived campaign to be appointed to Portland’s new post of public market
inspector. She receives the endorsement of the national and state suffrage associations. The Oregonian declares Equi had “the strongest endorsement of any candidate.” She withdrew her name
from consideration when it was clear the mayor intended to appoint someone else.
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