First edition published 1934. Author studied California exploration, government and mission history, generally congruent, and the trajectory leading from Spanish discovery, rediscovery some 200 years later, and eventual displacement by Mexico and finally the US, much of her sources and work in Bancrofts original library in San Francisco before it was moved to UC Berkeley. Also includes the shifting of the Catholic orders, including the founding Jesuits (later exiled as from other Latin American countries), Franciscans, Benedictines and Carmelites, not necessarily in that order. She was a believer in the benign goals of the original padres "parenting" the Indians and deplored the secularization of the mission. In spite her gushing over the priests and the events, she gives an entertaining account of events.