author
J. A. (Jackson Alpheus) Graves
1852–1933
A firsthand chronicler of early California, he wrote with the perspective of someone who had watched the state change from frontier communities to a modern city. His books blend memoir, travel writing, and local history in a clear, personal voice.
1 Audiobook
Out of Doors—California and Oregon
by J. A. (Jackson Alpheus) Graves
About the author
Born in Iowa on December 5, 1852, he moved to California with his family in 1857 and spent nearly all the rest of his life there. After graduating from St. Mary's College in San Francisco, he studied law, moved to Los Angeles in 1875, and built a career as both an attorney and later a banker.
Graves is remembered today mainly for the way he recorded California life from the inside. The Library of Congress describes My Seventy Years in California, 1857-1927 as the work of a man whose family left Iowa for ranching and farming in California, and who later became one of Los Angeles's leading attorneys and bankers. His earlier Out of Doors, California and Oregon also reflects his interest in travel, landscape, and the region's changing character.
He died in 1933. For modern readers, his appeal lies in the combination of lived experience and observation: his writing preserves memories of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century California in an accessible, conversational way.