She served as the secretary of the California branch of the National Woman's Party in the 1940s and lectured frequently in favor of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
[1] He had served in Hood's Texan Brigade of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War and her mother had lost all of her brothers in the conflict.
[2][3] She began to deliver speeches when she was just two years old and went on to cover subjects such as temperance and spirituality when addressing veterans groups and Sunday schools.
[2] The orations were written by her father, or included well known works, such as Rose Hartwick Thorpe's Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight and Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven and were presented throughout the state.
Arthur proposed to her upon their meeting and despite her brother's protests, the two were married the following day, November 9, 1897, at the Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral, in Suva.
[24] The couple would have ten children together: Randolph (1898), Tom (1900), Don (1901), Max (1902), Laura (1903), Leonard (1905), Stephen (1907), Leonie (1908), Ciwa (1911), and Hazel (1913).
[25] As Griffiths' experience was in writing, she took over editing the paper and wrote a regular column "Passing Notes", a society page, as well as reporting on the news, including coverage of foreign events and the legislature.
[27] Three months after having given birth to her last child in 1913, Griffiths went to work at Australian Woman's Weekly, a women's journal which was operated by Denton & Spencer from 1911 to 1921 before folding.
[29] Eventually, she added more radical commentary in an opinion column which covered issues such as cooperative child care centers and kitchens to help the poor, the plight of unemployed women immigrants, equal pay, child welfare programs, legal reforms of divorce laws, women's participation in politics, sexual hygiene and birth control.
She participated in peace demonstrations, petition drives, and used her skill from her youth as an elocution performer to speak perched upon boxes in the street proclaiming the evils of war and its ties to power and wealth for those who benefited from the profits of increased manufacturing of weapons and other war-related products.
In addition to publishing in the Sunday Times, the International Socialist and Brisbane's Daily Standard, she wrote articles on feminism and against the war for Britain's Social Democrat and Chicago's Industrial Worker.
[21] In 1922, they were back in San Antonio, and Griffiths was campaigning for the pardon of George McKinley Grace, a Black man who had been found guilty of assaulting a White woman.
[1][21] During the 1930s Griffiths was recognized in the book American Women Poets of 1937 published by Henry Harrison in 1937[43] and was involved in the California division of the Federal Writers' Project for the Works Progress Administration.
[1] She gave lectures and worked for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1940s and in 1943 was elected as secretary-treasurer of the California branch of the National Woman's Party.
[44][45] Griffiths was one of the featured lecturers on women's gains toward equality for the National Woman's Party's commemoration of Susan B. Anthony's 125th birthday in 1945.
[47][48] Griffiths died on June 29, 1951, in San Francisco and was buried on July 2 at the Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Colma, California.
[50] The leather bag which was presented to her by the Red Flag prisoners, for whose release she had pressed, is also part of the collection of her memorabilia at the National Library.