page_title: Eliza D. Keith
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Eliza D. Keith / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: "Report of Historical Landmarks Committee of the Native Daughters Golden West" by Eliza D. Keith (1902)
context_page_description: Eliza Douglas Keith was an American educator, author, and journalist from California. Keith wrote under the pen names of Erle Douglas and Di Vernon. She wrote for Demorest's Monthly Magazine, Kate Field's Washington, Good Housekeeping, The Daily Alta California, San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, The San Francisco Call, and the San Francisco News Letter. She was a special correspondent of the San Francisco Recorder-Union, the Journalist, and Kate Fields Washington. Keith was a member of Pacific Coast Women's Press Association, the Illinois Press League, the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association.
  Keith, of New England and Knickerbocker ancestry, was a native of San Francisco and a graduate of its public schools. Under the pen name of "Di Vernon," she began her career as staff writer for the San Francisco News Letter. Her articles were extensively copied throughout the United States, appearing in the leading papers of San Francisco, the Pacific Coast, and in many journals of the East Coast.
context_section_description: After graduating from high school, she became a principal of the Sherman School in San Francisco. She also became a contributor to the daily and weekly press, as well as the amateur press from 1879. These were principally poems, such as "A Fragment". But her best work in amateur journalism was in the form of extended sketches. Her first production of this kind, entitled "Through a Thermometer", was published in pamphlet form by Philip I. Figel in 1882. Her later sketch, written in 1886, entitled, "Did She Care For Him?" also published by Figel in pamphlet form, was considered an improvement. This was not a very original love story, but the method of telling was more than ordinary. The best work was, perhaps, in the descriptions, but the characters were well brought out, and the plot was skillfully unfolded.
  While in school she had already written some verses, and she continued to send occasional poems to the papers. One of these poems, entitled “Our Flag,” written during the Civil War, demonstrated her strong poetical talents. She became connected with the Alta Californian, the Chronicle, the Examiner, and the Call, of San Francisco, both as a space writer and a contributor of special articles, usually without signature. As this method of impersonal journalism made her but little known except in a limited circle, she adopted the nom de plume of “Erie Douglas,” contributing poetical charades to the puzzle columns of the weekly papers and winning prizes in contests for the best essays. She wrote poems of humor for the Wasp, and edited the “Snap Shots” department for the San Francisco News Letter. 
  Most of her later work appeared over the signature of "Di Vernon", by which name she became known all over the Pacific coast. She also contributed to Eastern periodicals, as her notability extended, such as Demorest's Monthly Magazine, Kate Field's Washington, Good Housekeeping, and other publications devoted to the interests of women. She also wrote many short stories.  Under "Di Vernon", she served as special writer for the Alta Californian, San Francisco Chronicle, Examiner, and Call, as well as the San Francisco News Letter; was a special correspondent of the San Francisco Recorder-Union, and wrote also for the Journalist, Kate Fields Washington, and many other periodicals.
  In 1892, as a member of the Pacific Coast Women's Press Association, Keith scored a "journalistic triumph" for her comments published by the Illustrated American. Beginning with a Fourth of July article, 1890, she published a glowing article in the News Letter, in which she stated: “It is treason to haul down the flag from the masthead; it is treason to degrade it in the estimation of a child." In February, 1891, she asked: "Shall the flag of our country be debased by bearing upon its fair surface an advertising device? If there be no law to prevent it, let us have one at once." In September, 1891, she delivered an address before the Pacific Coast Women's Press Association at Union Square Hall. The peroration was a patriotic outburst, calling upon Congress to protect the flag from the advertising 'fiend'. This was published in the Daily Report, of San Francisco, and in the New York Journalist, giving it a widespread circulation. This address also contained an exposition of "Di Vernon's" pet project, the organization of the "Order of the American Flag," a patriotic legion, among the children of America. At other times during the last few years which preceded this, Keith (as Di Vernon) made similar appeals to arouse the patriotic sentiment. So she was surprised, after picking up a copy of the Illustrated American in April 1892, to find a self-laudatory editorial, in which the paper congratulated itself that the crusade which it had inaugurated against the flag-advertising was about yield results. To claim the whole credit for that aroused Di Vernon's sense of justice. She wrote to the editor, asking the date of the “inauguration.” Maurice Meyer Minton, Sr. replied in a courteous note, stating that the matter was brought up in editorials of vol. 9, page 530, 
caption: Report of Historical Landmarks Committee of the Native Daughters Golden West
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