author
Bertha H. Smith
A Los Angeles magazine writer with a gift for place and story, she is best remembered for Yosemite Legends, a graceful retelling of Native traditions connected to Yosemite Valley. Her work blends regional history, travel writing, and a strong sense of California's landscape.
1 Audiobook
Yosemite Legends
by Bertha H. Smith
About the author
Born in 1872, Bertha H. Smith was an American writer based in Los Angeles. Rare-book and bookseller records identify her as Bertha Henry Smith and describe her as a magazine and literary writer whose work appeared in newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald.
She is best known for Yosemite Legends, first published in 1904, a collection of stories connected to Yosemite Valley and its Indigenous traditions. The book has had a long afterlife, including preservation through Project Gutenberg, and it remains the work most closely associated with her today.
Smith also wrote about California more broadly. A 1907 Sunset Magazine article, "The Making of Los Angeles," shows her interest in the growth, character, and mythology of the region. She died in 1922, but her writing still offers a window into how early twentieth-century California was being imagined and described.