Soon after their marriage,[3] the couple left Missouri and moved to San Francisco, California, where Phoebe gave birth to their only child, William Randolph Hearst.

[9] In 1902, Hearst funded the construction of a building to provide teacher training and to house kindergarten classes and the association's offices.

[11] Hearst was a major benefactor of the University of California, Berkeley, and its first woman regent, serving on the board from 1897 until her death.

[14] Hearst became a close friend of Dr. William Pepper, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who was also a medical doctor who treated her for a heart condition.

With her support, anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber and his students, including Robert F. Heizer, documented Native Californian culture in the form of photographs, audio recordings, texts, and artifacts.

She held that position from 1889 to 1918, contributing much time and money to the restoration of George Washington's home at Mount Vernon, furnishing it with Washington-owned objects and improving the visitor experience.

[26] In 1898 she declared her belief in the Baháʼí Faith,[27] and helped play a key role in the spread of the religion in the United States.

Hearst had already been an early investor in the initiative of Sarah Farmer using the Greenacre Inn as a summer center of cross-religion gatherings and cultural development shortly after the 1893 Parliament of Religions.

[28]: p.193  In November 1898, Hearst, with Lua Getsinger and others, briefly stopped off in Paris, on their way to Palestine, and was shocked to see May Bolles (later Maxwell), later a well known American member of the Baháʼí Faith, bedridden with the chronic malady with which she had been afflicted.

Getsinger disclosed to Bolles the purpose of the journey: a pilgrimage to visit the then head of the Baháʼí Faith: ʻAbdu'l-Bahá.

[42] In October 1912, she invited ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, who was travelling throughout the United States, to stay at her home for a long weekend, even though at that time she had become estranged from the Bahá'í community.

[42] During his stay, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá mentioned that anyone who tried to extort money or goods from others should not be considered a true Bahá'í.