History of the Southern California Woman’s Press Club, 1894-1929.
[Los Angeles: The Foster Co., Inc., 1930.]. First edition of the author’s final book. With a photo plate of Ellerbe. Introduction by Elsie Noble Caldwell. Toning to edges of boards and to endpapers. Some light contemporary pencil marginalia throughout. A very good copy of an uncommon book. Publisher’s quarter black cloth over gray marbled boards. Titled in gilt. Octavo. 68 pp, Item #17546
In March of 1894, ten women met at the home of Tessa Kelso, librarian of the city of Los Angeles, and organized a branch of the Pacific Coast Woman’s Press Association. Within a year, the name “Southern California Woman’s Press Club” was proposed by a member, Mary E. Hart, and the club was formed under president M. Burton Williamson. Journalist, author, and historian Rose Ellerbe (1862 – 1928) held many offices in the club before being elected president in 1916, “an office which she filled with grace and fairness, and with but a single principle in view—that of the greatest good to the Club,” (p. 8).
Ellerbe was born in New York and spent her early life in Mississippi, Minnesota, and Chicago before moving to California in 1884 to work as a teacher. In Los Angeles, she became a journalist and contributed regularly to the Los Angeles Times, Ladies Home Journal, Colliers, Lippincotts, and other publications. In the introduction to the present work, Caldwell praises her historical novel Ropes of Sand (1925) and her nonfiction works History of San Bernardino County (1904) and History of the Santa Monica Bay Cities (1908), which “earned for her the reputation of an authority on the history of California and the West,” (p. 8). Ellerbe, a supporter of the arts, was also involved with the Pasadena Center for Russian Handicrafts. “Ellerbe, Rose L. Papers” (finding aid). Autry Museum of the American West Library and Archives. Accessed on the Online Archive of California.
Price: $125.00