The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek and CGLHS are partnering to present an evening with the author of Writing Themselves into History: Emily and Matilda Bancroft in Journals and Letters. 

At the garden, Kim Bancroft will address the ways in which Emily and Matilda Bancroft related to the changing landscapes around them, from enjoying nature in then-rural Alameda, Oakland, and beyond, to creating gardens out of sand dunes in San Francisco, to the efforts of gold diggers and farmers to adapt landscapes to their own needs. The talk will feature the creation of the Bancrofts’ Walnut Creek farm in the late 19th century, which became the Ruth Bancroft Garden in the late 20th century.

A one-hour presentation will be followed by light refreshments and an after-hours stroll through the Ruth Bancroft Garden. Copies of Kim’s new book will be available for purchase. 

Kim Bancroft is the author of Writing Themselves into History, which offers a rich immersion in nineteenth-century California, detailing Emily’s and Matilda’s experiences with public life, motherhood, and business against the backdrop of San Francisco’s high society and the state’s growth amidst the tumult of the American Civil War. The book also highlights Matilda’s significant involvement in Hubert Howe’s trailblazing research on the history of the American West—including her work collecting oral histories from women members of the LDS Church—and her evocative descriptions of travels throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.