The most prominent literary woman of the coast is undoubtedly Miss. M. W. Shinn. She is a graduate of our State University and was the medal scholar of her class. At present she is the editor of the Overland Monthly, and the excellent prospects of the magazine are largely the result of her own courage and the hard work she has done.
The higher education in the State is being put upon a secure basis. Hon, Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, have recently given a great part of their vast fortune for the establishment of a university which bids fair to be the foremost educational] institution on the continent. In a letter specifying his views in regard to the management of the university, Governor Stanford says:
There are many men and women throughout the State who have faithfully advocated political equality for all citizens.[1]
Mendocino county has the honor of claiming as a citizen, one of the earliest and ablest women in this reform, Clarina Howard Nichols, who may be said to have sown the seeds of liberty in three States in which she has resided, Vermont, Kansas and California. Since 1870, her home has been with a son in Pomo, where she finished her heroic life January 11, 1885. Though always in rather straitened circumstances, Mrs. Nichols was uniformly calm and cheerful, living in an atmosphere above the petty annoyances of every-day life with the great souls of our day and generation, keeping time in the march of progress. She was too much absorbed in the vital questions of the hour even to take note of her personal discomforts. Many of her able articles published in magazines and the journals of the day, and letters from year to year to our
- ↑ Among the many who have been active and faithful in the movement for the political rights of women, whose names should be mentioned, are: Mrs. Eliza Taylor, Mrs. O. Fuller, Elizabeth McComb, Dr. Laura P. Williams, Mrs. Dr. White, Sallie Hart, Dr. R. H. McDonald, Hon. Frank Pixley, and many others in San Francisco; Fanny Green McDougal, Oakland; Mrs. Phebe Benedict, Antioch; Mrs.Isabella Irwin, San Rafael; Mrs. Cynthia Palmer, Mrs. Emily Rolfe, Nevada City; Mrs. Elizabeth Condy, Stockton; Miss E. S. Sleeper, Mountain View; Mrs. Laura J. Watkins, Mrs. Damon, Santa Clara; Mrs. Dr. Kilpatrick, San Mateo; Mrs. S. G. Waterhouse, Drs. Kellogg and Bearby, Mrs. M. J. Young, Mrs. E. B. Crocker, and others, Sacramento; Mrs. Mary Jewett, Mr. and Mrs. Howell, Healdsburgh; Mrs. Lattimer, Windsor; Mr. and Mrs. Denio, Mrs. E. L. Hale, Vallejo; Mrs. J. Lewellyn, Mrs. Potter. St. Helena; Mr. and Mrs. J. Eggleston, Napa; Henry and Abigail Bush, Martines; Rowena Granice Steele, Merced; Mrs. Jennie Phelps Purvis, Mrs. Lapham and daughter, Modesto.