ABOUT the Author
Elizabeth isn’t the only one that had adventures!
I’m Shirley Marshall: author, historian, researcher and traveler. After a career in non-profit leadership, I shifted to my first love — sharing history.
My books focus on eye-witness stories, with thoughtful context to create a complete picture. First-hand accounts often allow us to explore larger social and economic issues. Do the writers embrace change, fight for it? Do they fear it, struggling to keep the old way? Or do they just ignore changes, sit out the fight? These choices are fundamental to our shared story, our history.
As Angeles Peon, survivor of the Spanish Civil War, said: “What are we without memories?” As a society, when we forget our history we lose the truth of our world. Or as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot liked to say: “Old sins cast long shadows.”
My first books are a connected, each featuring the wonderful writings of Elizabeth Kalb Green. She was a suffragist, then an ‘auto-camper’ for a year in a Model T, and finally she was a reporter from China during their civil war in the 1920s. Her letters are a unique opportunity to explore major issues of the early 20th Century.
Thanks to the UUAW, had a wonderful time sharing some suffrage history at the 2026 Women’s Equality Day celebration!
Sampling of letters 
Preparing for first Demonstration 
Elizabeth, c. 1920 
Stopped and Detained at the Senate Office Buliding 
Elizabeth, behind the pole on the right, in borrowed white dress 
Big Basin Redwood Park, Lin Yun chopping wood 
Canyon camping, outside Palm Springs CA 
Big Basin, light through the woods 
Elizabeth’s first drive in her Model T 
Looking toward Mt. San Jacinto 
“Kwanyin” or Guanyin in the redwood forest
“The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has seen only one’s own country.”
Attributed to Fougeret De Monbron, 1753
Elizabeth with Kozo Fujita [grad, University of Iowa] and his sister Yoshi in Japan, en route to China, 1925
books
A Radical Suffragist, 2024, The History Press.
Elizabeth worked and lived at the National Woman’s Party Headquarters in DC from 1918 – 1921. Her letters from the first five months reveal a young woman excited, scared and stepping up to the challenge of her “first Grand Adventure.”
California Cruising with Elizabeth, 2025, Rearview Publishing
Elizabeth recounts the year she spent car camping across California in 1922/23. With a Model T named “Junior,” she and her mother spent three months among the redwoods and then six months in the desert outside Palm Springs. Her friendship with the local Agua Caliente people allowed her to use suffrage skills for a new cause.
Peking at War: Fighters, Writers & Ghosts.
This is the last book in the Elizabeth series [due Fall, 2026]. In 1925, with China beset by civil war, she sailed happily for Peking. Elizabeth spent almost a year reporting back home on people and events . Her letters combine personal and political as she recounts discussions with major players and local workers alike.
Looking for more info about the fight for suffrage? The Resources page includes books, journals and websites with interesting angles on the history.
Eye-Witness History 