Annie Kennedy Bidwell

Book excerpt: Over the past few decades, thanks to a new generation of historians, our sense of just exactly who were the Founders of nineteenth-century American California has been significantly enlarged and enhanced. With the publication of this meticulously researched and elegantly written biography, what many of us have long suspected now stands clear: namely that Annie Kennedy Bidwell--in her concern for civilized and humane values and her willingness to put such values into practice--ranks among the great women of California in the nineteenth century. Like her husband, Annie Bidwell was a Founder. Historian Lois Halliday McDonald has recovered for us the splendor and moral purpose of an engaged and value-oriented American life. --Kevin Starr, University Professor of History, University of Southern California; State Librarian Emeritus