Working in an era when women had not yet secured the right to vote, she used her affluence and social status to accomplish her goals and to promote the protection of nature and the improvement of life for city dwellers.

Unlike John Muir, White did not draw a sharp distinction between natural and urban beauty, and she saw a place for economic development, so long as its excesses were moderated.

Her writing challenged the aggressive exploitation of natural resources by such means as the hydraulic mining that she had witnessed in the Sierra Nevada.

In San Francisco in 1897, she founded the California Club, a civic association that soon numbered 500 women as charter members.

The California Club championed child welfare, the establishment of kindergartens, compulsory schooling, and developing the state's juvenile court system.

A joint resolution to purchase the property at its market value as timber, sponsored by California Senator George Clement Perkins and Representative Marion De Vries, was signed into law in March, 1900.

A bill to acquire the property by condemnation was promoted by White's California Club, but was blocked by House leaders David B. Henderson and Joseph Gurney Cannon.

[11] White renewed her efforts to protect the "Big Trees" in 1904, presenting a petition with 1,400,000 signatures to President Theodore Roosevelt.

After periods of patient lobbying, legislation was passed in February, 1909 authorizing the exchange of existing federal forest land for the Calaveras tract.

It so happened a foreclosure placed the property under the control of White's husband Lovell and his San Francisco Savings Union bank.

In 1907, Kent went on to donate the forest to the federal government; in January, 1908, Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed it Muir Woods National Monument.

[16] Locally, in San Francisco, White and the California Club continued their efforts to improve living conditions for city dwellers.

In 1902, drawing from the same pool of activists in the California Club, White formed the Outdoor Art League and became its first president.

[19] When a rock quarry operated by the Gray Brothers Company at the foot of Telegraph Hill threatened the 2 acres (0.81 ha) Pioneer Park, White successfully sought an injunction to block the blasting.

She lobbied the city to acquire additional land, but these efforts did not come to fruition until 1929, when Lillie Hitchcock Coit bequeathed the necessary funds.

She (and hence the club) did not take a position on the Hetch Hetchy controversy, which found Kent and John Muir on opposite sides of the question.