Born out of the suffragist movement just 17 years after Carrie Chapman Catt laid the cornerstone of the National League of Women Voters, the Pasadena League began in 1936 with a clutch of civic-minded women in the living room of a San Marino home.

Itching to get to work, they established the "Pasadena Unit" only three months after the initial session.  About 100 women convened March 31, 1936, at Pasadena's public meeting hall, La Casita del Arroyo, to launch the local League of Women Voters. Working out of an office in the Women's City Club, the fledgling Pasadena LWV quickly moved into local issues, despite a pledge to leave that to the venerable Pasadena Civic League established 25 years earlier.