As we close out the summer season and welcome fall, it’s time for a new exhibit at the Kelley House Museum. “A Woman’s Place Was Everywhere: How Working Women Shaped Mendocino” opens at the Kelley House on Thursday, October 2nd. This exhibit celebrates hard working women and their impact on Mendocino history.
As a new Mendocino resident, I have learned a lot on my journey to familiarize myself with the history here. Mendocino has gone through many eras and boasted many interesting personalities. Through conversations with long-time residents and visitors to the Kelley House, I discovered that logging history came up more often than any other subject. From growing up surrounded by flat cornfields and generations of farmers, the redwoods and the loggers fascinated me.
Upon learning so much of Mendocino’s logging history, the next question I had was, while the men were logging, what did the women do? Being a wife and a mother was a full-time job itself, so what are their stories? What new opportunities were available to women in the “Wild West?”
A wealth of history emerged! While men were logging, many opportunities were open for women in roles that were not available for them elsewhere in the country at the same rate and/or in the same period. Teaching, for example, was widely considered a male occupation in the colonial period. At the beginning of the 20th century, it transitioned into a female-dominated field. This change happened even earlier on the Mendocino coast, however. Since men could earn more money logging, women became teachers at a higher rate than in more urban areas.
In 1852, California passed the Sole Trader Act, giving married women the right to conduct business in their own names and with their own bank accounts. It would be over 100 years before similar federal legislation was passed that protected all women’s rights (regardless of their marital status) to own and operate a business. Many businesses here have been (and continue to be) owned and operated by women. These are just two examples!
Through their own diaries, photos, and oral histories, this exhibit tells the lesser-known stories of entrepreneurs, nurses, artists, teachers, madams, philanthropists, mothers, and more who laid the foundation for the Mendocino we know today. Their creativity, resilience, and hard work—both paid and unpaid—shaped the legacy of the Mendocino coast in ways that are often overlooked. While we wish every woman could be featured in the exhibit, we’ve chosen a few in specific careers to represent a variety of history. The exhibit features a section where you can nominate a woman—past or present—who you think exemplified this hard-working mindset. Come tell us about your local heroine!
A Woman’s Place Was Everywhere: How Working Women Shaped Mendocino is open October 2nd, 2025 to March 29th, 2026. The opening reception honoring local businesswomen is on October 11th, 4-5:30pm. The Kelley House Museum is open Thursday-Monday, 11am-3pm. Visit the Kelley House event Calendar for a walking tour schedule.