Ellen Browning Scripps (October 18, 1836 – August 3, 1932) was an American journalist and philanthropist who was the founding donor of several major institutions in Southern California.

Scripps Company, America's largest chain of newspapers, linking Midwestern industrial cities with booming towns in the West.

They had six children, five of whom lived to adulthood: James E. Scripps (1835–1906), Ellen Browning (1836–1932), William Arminger (1838–1914), George Henry (1839–1900) and John Mogg (1840–1863).

[3] After the failure of his bookbinding shop and the death of his second wife, James Mogg emigrated to the United States with his six children in April 1844.

They had five children: Julia Anne (1847–1898), Thomas Osborn (1848–53), Frederick Tudor (1850–1936), Eliza Virginia (1852–1921), and Edward Willis (1854–1926), the well-known newspaper tycoon and founder of The E.W.

[4] Born in London and raised in Rushville, Illinois, Ellen Browning Scripps was an avid reader and learner at an early age.

[2][5] After the American Civil War, Scripps gave up her job as a schoolteacher and headed to Detroit, at that time a booming industrial center in the West.

She joined her brother James E. Scripps in publishing The Detroit Evening News, a short, inexpensive, and politically independent newspaper pitched to the city's working class.

Scripps worked as a copyeditor and wrote a daily column, nicknamed "Miss Ellen's Miscellany," that reduced local and national news to short sound bites.

According to Gerald Baldasty, "Her columns of "Miscellany" and other topics became the inspiration for the Newspaper Enterprise Association, a news features service that Edward Scripps established in 1902.

's attempt to seize control of the Scripps Publishing Company failed, resulting in a divisive lawsuit and a break with his half-brother James.

Ellen wrote weekly letters back to The Detroit Evening News about their travels, describing her impressions of people and places.

[3] In 1887, Ellen's sister Julia Anne moved to Alameda, California, to seek a remedy for crippling rheumatoid arthritis.

[9][10] In 1897 Scripps moved to the seaside village of La Jolla where she built a modest house named South Molton Villa after the street in London on which she had been born.

Over the next three decades, she and her half-sister Virginia created a Scripps family compound that included extensive gardens, Wisteria Cottage (now the La Jolla Historical Society), a library, a guest bungalow, a lathe house, and two garages.

In La Jolla, Ellen gradually stepped out of her intimate family circle and began to acquire a large set of female acquaintances.

The group managed The Cincinnati Post, The Cleveland Press, The St. Louis Chronicle, The Toledo News-Bee, and the Kansas City Star.

They also acquired newspapers in Memphis, Oklahoma City, Evansville, Terre Haute, Columbus, Denver, Dallas, and Houston.

[5] Scripps funded many wildlife preservation and education initiatives, including the San Diego Zoo and Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve.