In 1863, she came to
California via Panama, and for many years made her home at
Oakland and
San Francisco. She had a talent for writing and in San Francisco engaged in newspaper work. She contributed to
The Daily Alta California, the
San Francisco Evening Bulletin,
The San Francisco Call,
San Francisco Examiner, and the
San Francisco Chronicle, all notable journals in their time. She wrote for years under the pen name of "Hagar", and contributed liberally not only to papers on the
West coast, but also to
Eastern journals. This literary activity helped her develop relationships with Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Joaquin Miller, and Mrs. Joaquin Miller (
Minnie Myrtle Miller), and many other celebrities of the day associated with the Coast and known internationally. From the age of 14, Purvis was a stanch suffragist, working as a contemporary of and in close touch with
Susan B. Anthony,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Rev.
Olympia Brown and others, from the start of the movement in California. Five women suffragists, of whom Purvis was one, met in San Francisco in the 1860s and organized the first woman's suffrage association as a state organization, Purvis being made secretary of the association. In the election of 1910, when equal suffrage carried in California,
Stanislaus County was the banner county of the state. During this time, she was chair of Stanislaus and
Merced counties and so active in distributing their literature that the supply eventually ran out. Purvis was also prominent in the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and was second vice-president of the California State WCTU. She was also state superintendent of anti-narcotics, and succeeded in getting the bill passed which prohibited the sale of tobacco to boys under 16 in the legislative session of 1891. Two years later, her efforts to have another bill passed, this time prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to boys under 21, were successful; but
Governor James Budd vetoed the measure. She was a delegate to the national WCTU convention that met at
Boston in 1891. The distinctive feature of the "
Frances Willard convention", held in Boston in 1891, was that it was a world's WCTU and a national WCTU convention combined, the national following immediately upon the close of the world's convention. This was the first world's convention ever held in the United States. It is not surprising that, after such activity, she should have contributed much to the
Ensign, the California state organ of the WCTU Among other noted publications realized or proposed by Purvis was a book on suffrage, which was appreciated so much by
Horace Greeley that he wrote a friend asking him to find a publisher, recommending the volume in a very complimentary way. ==Personal life==