Correspondence; manuscripts of poems, including poems set to music; some accounts; clippings, including a scrapbook of Ambrose Bierce items; programs, invitations and miscellaneous papers.

Ina Donna Coolbrith was born Josephine D. Smith on March 10, 1842, near Springfield, Illinois. Her parents were Agnes Coolbrith and Don Carlos Smith, brother of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. After the death of her father, she went with her mother to live in St. Louis. There her mother married a newspaper man named William Pickett and shortly after the gold rush the Pickett family migrated to California. Ina supposedly entered California in the summer of 1851 on the saddle of James P. Beckwourth -the first white child to cross the Sierra Nevadas over the Beckwourth Pass. The family settled eventually in Los Angeles, and it was there she received her formal schooling. She began writing verses when she was 11 and saw them published in the local papers under the nom-de-plume, Ina.

Number of containers: 9 boxes and 1 portfolio.

Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Collection is open for research.