Severance", an indication of her prestige and position in the city. With two of their children still in the east, Caroline and T. C. Severance had never lost their love of Boston, although they became passionate advocates for their newly adopted home. At first, they returned regularly to the east, and without Caroline's immediate leadership, the Los Angeles Women's Club twice failed. Finally, in 1881, she established a lasting institution, the Friday Morning Club, devoted to cultural and social betterment and civic reform. As reported by Leonard Pitt and Dale Pitt in their book Los Angeles: From A-Z, "[The Friday Morning Club] ran a lending library, maintained an employment bureau, and conducted classes." It became one of the most powerful and prestigious organizations in the city. She was also an active member of the Pacific Coast Women's Press Association. After her husband's death in 1892, Caroline Severance changed the name of her home to "El Nido", which is Spanish for "the nest". Situated in a tree-shaded garden, El Nido was a gathering place for men and women devoted to social change. In 1906, Ella Giles Ruddy wrote in The Mother of Clubs: “For more than thirty years this hospitable home has been a rendezvous for literary people visiting Los Angeles, for leaders in progressive thought . . . in whatever direction it may tend, and for men and women interested also in local or municipal reforms and improvements. The title "Mother of Clubs" has been supplemented by that of the "Ethical Magnet of Southern California ..." Women's right to vote in California In 1911, when Californian women achieved the right to vote, Caroline Severance was lauded as the spiritual leader of the suffrage movement in Southern California, although her advanced age had limited her participation in the campaign. She was featured in every Los Angeles newspaper the day after the election. Although it has often been written that she was the first woman to register to vote in the state, this is not true. In fact, she registered a week after the election, when a registrar came to her home. She did, however, go to the polls the following year to vote in the presidential election, and in 1912, at the age of ninety-two she cast her vote for president, having worked for woman suffrage for more than sixty years. Although she told the press that she had voted for