Pacific Coast Women's Press Association
[1] After nearly three years of planning, 150 invitations were sent out to newspaper women and authors in good standing on the Pacific coast, asking them to meet in San Francisco, California on September 27, 1890 at the home of Emelie Tracy Y. Swett.
A library of several hundred books was accumulated and catalogued, and at the close of the year, the Association numbered 125 active members.
The first monograph issued was on the topic of "Country Roads and City Streets", written by Mary Lynde Hoffman, a large property owner.
The original Executive Board included Jeanne C. Smith Carr of Pasadena, California, First Vice-President; Sarah Brown Ingersoll Cooper, Second Vice-President; Ella Rhoads Higginson of Whatcom, Washington, Third Vice-President; Parkhurst, Corresponding Secretary; Nellie Verrill Mighels Davis of Carson City, Nevada, Recording Secretary; Mary Olmstead Stanton, Treasurer; Isabel H. Raymond of Santa Cruz, California Auditor; and a supplementary committee consisting of Mary Camilla Foster Hall-Wood of Santa Barbara, Frances Bagby-Blades of San Diego and Andrea Hofer of Chicago.
Among the members of the Association engaged in editorial work were Genevieve Lucile Browne of the Californian, Louise E. Francis, editor of the Castroville Enterprise, Maggie Downing Brainard of the Pacific Tree and Vine, San Jose, California and Mrs. L. C. P. Haskins of Washington.
[11] Among those members who were regular contributors to Eastern and local journals, writing upon California subjects, were a number of Pacific Coast writers by adoption.
Other members whose largest contribution to the press was for Eastern publications were Carrie Wake Morgan, Alice Cary Waterman, Clara Spalding Brown, and Dorothea Lummis.
[7] Madge Morris Wagner, born on the Great Plains when her parents were enroute to California, was a poet and journalist associated with The Golden Era.
[12] Among those of national prominence were Jessie Benton Fremont, an author who was instrumental in bringing California into the Union as a free State.
Rose Hartwick Thorpe, author of Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight, had a note from Queen Victoria telling her that she had committed that poem to memory.
Jeanne C. Smith Carr (initial First Vice-President of the PCWPA Executive Board), was a constant writer for the general press, well-known in Southern California.
[14] There were the writers, Frances Fuller Victor and Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman (past PCWPA Executive Board member), as well as the social reformer, Mrs. M. G. C. Edholmes, and the botanist, Sara Plummer Lemmon.
Florence Percy Matheson (past PCWPA treasurer), for many years one of the editors of The San Francisco Call, was a constant contributor to the California press.
[13] Other women who were doing important literary work included: Mrs. S. L. Darling, Emily S. Loud, Mary V. T. Lawrence, Florence Hardeman Miller, Laura Young Pinney, Mrs. Ella M. Sexton, Mrs. Emma Seckle Marshall, Mrs. Virginia S. Hilliard, Rose L. Bushnell Donnelly, Amelia Truesdell, Willina Knight Stringer, Dr. Minora Kibbe, Ruth Comfort Mitchell, Lydia H. Morrow, Mrs. James Neall, Elizabeth Murray Newman, Laura Lyon White, S. M. Farnham, Mary Fairbrother, Julia P. Foster, Sophie Gardiner, Augusta Friedrich Von Eichen, E. Or.
[15] Abbie E. Krebs (past President PCWPA) had been a newspaper writer, and for some years edited the column of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Reviews of current literature, dramatic, artistic and musical criticism, and articles on art and education, with poetry, fiction, and humor, were among the features of the journal.
While not exclusively a woman's paper, The Impress fully recognized the importance of the great movement of the century, and gave it space and attention.
