Volume I - Biography

Rowena Granice Steele (1824-1901)-actress, author, newspaper publisher, suffragist, lecturer on social issues-began her career on stage at Barnum's American Museum in New York and performed with companies around the U.S. and in Gold Rush California and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). In 1859 she became the West Coast's first female novelist and over the next 35 years produced more than sixty short stories and four novels. From 1862 to 1890 Rowena and her husband published the San Joaquin Valley Argus in Merced, California, for which she wrote hundreds of columns about local affairs and charitable concerns and detailing her extensive travels around the state. Despite many heartbreaking sorrows and personal ordeals, and often in the face of intense criticism and resistance to what were then considered radical, controversial ideas, Rowena steadfastly persisted. In her productive life can be found an example of indomitable altruism and activism to inspire and encourage generations to come.