Describes the paths to the Ph.D. and the subsequent careers of the first 15 women to earn Ph.D.s from the University of California. It covers: Milicent Washburn Shinn (1898), Jessica Blanche Peixotto (1900),Alice Robertson (1902), Edna Earl Watson Bailey (1910), Annie Dale Biddle Andrews (1911), Myrtle Elizabeth Johnson (1912), Lillian Ruth Matthews (1912), Emma Phoebe Waterman Haas (1913), Anna Estelle Glancy (1913), Frances Lytle Gillepsy (1914), Rosalind Wulzen (1914), Olga Louise Bridgman (1915), Helen Margaret Gillkey (1915), Olive Swezy (1915), Irene Agnes McCulloch (1916).