Lloy Galpin

Ava Lloy Galpin was born in Saginaw, Michigan,[1] and raised in Los Angeles,[2] the daughter of Cromwell Galpin and Clara Wood Galpin. Her father was mayor of Eagle Rock from 1914 to 1916,[1] before it became part of Los Angeles.[3] Her mother died in 1888.[4] Her stepmother after 1890 was educator and suffragist Kate Tupper Galpin.[5][6] Lloy Galpin graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison[7] and the University of California, Berkeley.[8]

Galpin taught at a school and at a teacher's college in the Philippines in 1903.[9] She taught in Los Angeles city schools from 1905, and was active for many years in the California Teachers' Association.[10][11] In 1909 she lectured on Los Angeles at the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition in Seattle.[12] She was the first woman president of the Los Angeles High School Teachers' Association.[2]

Galpin was president of the National College Women's Equal Suffrage League in 1909,[13] and a leader in the California Equal Suffrage Association.[14] In 1912 she toured California lecturing on "Why the Progressive Platform is a Woman's Platform", in support of the Progressive Party.[15] She ran for a seats in Congress and the California state senate in 1923.[8][16] She was a California delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1924.[7] She spoke in favor of Prohibition at a 1928 campaign rally in Los Angeles for presidential candidate Al Smith.[17]

Galpin was active in the California Federation of Women's Clubs, and president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs.[18][19] She served on executive boards of the Women's Vocational Alliance and the Survey on Race Relations.[7]

Galpin lived in Los Angeles with her half-sister, puppeteer Ellen Galpin,[1] in her later years. Lloy Galpin died of heart disease in 1935, aged 58 years, while visiting another sister, Hazel Galpin Lowe, in San Diego.[2]