She was well-known in literary circles in her early life -counting Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and Joaquin Miller as friends-[1] and for some years, was a prominent officer and member of the California state suffrage society.

[2] Hanna Jane (nicknames, "Jennie" and "Janette") Phelps[a] was born in Addison, New York, February 23, 1831, and received her education there.

[3] From the age of 14, Purvis was a stanch suffragist, working as a contemporary of and in close touch with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Rev.

Two years later, her efforts to have another bill passed, this time prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to boys under 21, were successful; but Governor James Budd vetoed the measure.

It is not surprising that, after such activity, she should have contributed much to the Ensign, the California state organ of the WCTU Among other noted publications realized or proposed by Purvis was a book on suffrage, which was appreciated so much by Horace Greeley that he wrote a friend asking him to find a publisher, recommending the volume in a very complimentary way.