Ina Coolbrith

Ina Donna Coolbrith, born Josephine Donna Smith on March 10, 1841, in Nauvoo, Illinois, was an important figure in the literary community of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century San Francisco.

Coolbrith is the author of Songs from the Golden Gate (Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1895) and The Singer of the Sea (The Century Club of California, 1894). Though the earthquake and fire of April 1906 destroyed her house and manuscripts-in-progress, she remained a prominent figure in the literary community. She served as the first poet laureate of California from 1915 until her death on February 29, 1928, in Berkeley, California.