Ethel Watts Mumford

After her first husband grew intolerant of her prolific writing and art career, she fled to San Francisco in 1899 with their only child, a son.

The daughter of a wealthy businessman, she was given a fine education, topped by her study of painting at the Julian Academy of Paris.

[citation needed] Most of her early published works were written in San Francisco including her first novel, Dupes.

She was a heavy producer of plays, vaudeville sketches, novels, short stories, joke collections, songs, poems, and articles.

[citation needed] In her teen years, after studying dramatic technique by reading 2,000 manuscripts, she turned to playwriting.