Background
Ina D. Coolbrith was a California poet and associate of writers Harte, Stoddard, Twain, Bierce, and others. In 1915 she was
named the state’s first poet laureate by the California legislature. Her niece, Ina Cook, cared for her in her later life,
and was working on a biography of Coolbrith when Cook died. Coolbrith was a client of Harris S. Allen, who had owned and
managed Allen’s Press Clipping Bureau in San Francisco since 1894.