Learning the newspaper trade
Wait was born in 1859 in Woodland, California. She married John Courtland Wait while still a teenager and later left the marriage following the death of their young son. The circumstances of that separation remain uncertain. Her subsequent professional life is more fully documented, including her early work at the Santa Rosa Republican and her entry into San Francisco journalism.
In her 1923 memoir, Getting on the Staff, she described learning to set type before studying the practical work of publishing at the Bancroft Company. Handling manuscripts taught her about composition as well as the mechanics of making books. She presented this training as preparation for earning the same pay as a man, rather than accepting a restricted place in newspaper work.
Reporting for the San Francisco Examiner brought both opportunity and resistance. In her memoir, Wait recalls covering Governor Bartlett’s inaugural ball after her assistant became drunk; she obtained the guests’ names from the police at the door, and her report attracted offers from rival papers. She then pressed for a place on the local staff. When she finally entered the newsroom, she recalled, her male colleagues refused to speak to her for ten days.
California as subject and public stage
Her Wines and Vines of California appeared in 1889 from the Bancroft Company. Subtitled A Treatise on the Ethics of Wine-Drinking, it received the endorsement of California’s Board of State Viticultural Commissioners.
