Litta Belle Hibben Campbell was a California attorney through the early 1900s. She championed women’s presence in the workplace, and eventually served as the first female Deputy District Attorney of Los Angeles from 1916–1918. Litta Belle also took pride in her beloved family’s Rancho Verde (or North Verde), which became an escape for the family from Los Angeles, and also a source of income as a vacation spot to the rich and famous during the Great Depression.
Litta Belle’s husband, Kemper Campbell, Sr., served as president of the California Bar Association and was heavily involved in state politics, and partly responsible for reforming much of California’s corrupt political landscape. In the 1920s, Kemper purchased the Verde Ranch. In the decades following, Litta Belle, Kemper, and their family hosted hundreds of guests from all walks of life. Movie stars, poets, playwrights, and politicians were not an uncommon sight during the ranch’s heyday. In a more notable occurrence, Herman Mankiewicz, was sent to the ranch by Orson Welles to finish the script for what would be regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, Citizen Kane.
Litta Belle was an early example of a career woman. She embodied the first-wave feminist ideology of an independent woman establishing her own stake in society rather than rushing into marriage or motherhood. In her own words, during her teenage years, “One fear followed me wherever I went — the fear that I would marry and settle down to raise an indefinite number of children on an Illinois farm.”
Litta Belle was a forerunner in early Planned Parenthood, thinking it morally necessary, and she fought, even losing friendships, in her fight for what she believed right and just. Her spirit of independence carried into her personal life. She was an advocate for wives having separate bank accounts from their husbands, a notion that was nearly unheard of in the early twentieth century. In a time when men controlled everything, she held her own as a strong, charismatic woman.
The Campbells were impressive advocates for environmentalism in the desert, especially where they had a voice, in and around the town of Victorville. The Campbells were offered over $400,000 in 1929 to sell the Mojave River, where it ran through their property. Not only did they reject the offer, which would have been helpful (as this was during the start of the Depression), but Kemper Sr. effectively killed the bill which would have allowed the destruction of the Mojave River.
Law and politics were always in close proximity to the members of the Campbell family. Due to this proximity, the Campbells had a loud voice and high standing in both the laws and politics of Los Angeles and Victorville. The political climate had gone through a significant change while the Campbells were influential, a force that stood by the people instead of the elites. As social reformers, Litta Belle and Kemper Sr. made it their mission to do what was right in a time that was one of the most corrupt in United States history. With the Transcontinental Railway running most of Californian politics, it took intellectual prowess and muscle, courtesy of Grove Johnson and his sons, to reform California’s politics to what it is today.
Litta Belle published her numerous memoirs later in life. These memoirs consist of slice of life gossip, socialite musings and anecdotes, her recollection of migrating from Illinois to California with her family, Transcontinental Railway political corruption, fighting for the environment in Southern California, and the plight of women of the day.
Her works are Marching without banners and other devices, Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer, Whom God Hath Joined Asunder, Words to the Unwise; cautionary tales.
