Margaret Collier Graham (September 29, 1850 – January 17, 1910) was a short story writer in southern California at the beginning of the 20th century.

Early life, education and marriage

Margaret Collier grew up in

Keokuk, Iowa Keokuk is a city in and a county seat of Lee County, Iowa, United States. It is Iowa's southernmost city. The population was 9,900 at the time of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census. The city is named after the Sauk people, Sauk chief K ...

.Elizabeth Pomeroy, ed., Sage Bloom and Water Rights: Stories of Early Southern California, "Margaret Collier Graham Chronology", pp 245-247, 2005. This entry is largely based on the Chronology and th
Finding Aid for the Margaret Collier Graham Papers 1877-1913
at the Online Archive of California. She had two sisters and a brother. In 1869, she graduated from Monmouth College (Illinois), where she had been active in its literary society. After teaching for three years in

Oskaloosa, Iowa Oskaloosa is a List of cities in Iowa, city in, and the county seat of, Mahaska County, Iowa. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Oskaloosa was a national center of bituminous coal mining. The population was 11,558 in the 2020 U ...

, she married Donald McIntyre Graham whom she had known at college. She settled with her husband, a young attorney, in Bloomingdale, Illinois, where they worked in an abstract of title business. When Donald contracted tuberculosis, the Grahams and Margaret's sister Jennie Collier moved to

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial d ...

after brief stays in San Francisco and Anaheim.

Career in Pasadena

Once in Pasadena, Margaret took a teaching job and began writing stories for ''

The Argonaut ''The Argonaut'' was a newspaper based in San Francisco, California from 1878 to 1956. It was founded by Frank Somers, and soon taken over by Frank M. Pixley, who built it into a highly regarded publication. Under Pixley's stewardship it was ...

'' and '' The Californian''. In 1881, she took a two-month leave of absence to meet travel to Oakland where she met publishers, wrote stories and became acquainted with historian Theodore Hittell and poet Ina Coolbirth. The Grahams and Margaret's brother Will Collier invested successfully in property near Lake Elsinore north east of San Diego, establishing the town of

Wildomar Wildomar is a city in southwest Riverside County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on July 1, 2008. As of the 2020 census, the population was 36,875. The community has grown quickly during the early 21st century; the populatio ...

in 1885. Financially secure, the Grahams built Wynyate, a three-story mansion in South Pasadena where they entertained the literary and civic leaders of the area. Donald became mayor of South Pasadena in 1888. Margaret and Jennie established the South Pasadena Lyceum, a precursor of the South Pasadena Public Library, in 1889. In 1890, Donald died of tuberculosis.

Later life

Margaret Graham resumed writing in 1892 publishing striking short stories set in the American West in the ''

Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 ...

'' and ''

Century Magazine ''The Century Magazine'' was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed by him after the Century Associat ...

''. Her first collection of short stories was published by Houghton, Mifflin in 1895 as ''Stories of the Foot-hills''. Active in the intellectual and political scene, she was a popular speaker and worked for women's suffrage through the Woman's Parliament of Southern California and for the preservation of

California missions The Spanish missions in California () formed a series of 21 religious outposts or missions established between 1769 and 1833 in what is now the U.S. state of California. The missions were established by Catholic priests of the Franciscan ord ...

through Charles Lummis' Landmarks Club. She was a monthly columnist in Lummis' magazine '' Land of Sunshine''. Her second collection of short stories, ''The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories'' was published in 1905, again by Houghton Mifflin. Graham died in 1910 at the age of 60.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Margaret Collier 1850 births 1910 deaths People from Van Buren County, Iowa People from South Pasadena, California Writers from Los Angeles County, California Writers from Iowa American women short story writers 19th-century American short story writers 19th-century American women writers 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American women writers

Early life, education and marriage

Career in Pasadena

Later life

References

Further reading

External links