Perch of the Devil by Gertrude Atherton — Read

Twenty years ago it was the ambition of every Californian, no matter how blatant his state pride, to move to New York. Today he hopes to live and die in California, the main reason being that the women of his family find themselves members of a comparatively old and settled community, enjoying many advantages and no little importance; given frequent trips abroad they are content to remain at home in houses of modern architecture, and to command a social position that New York has granted to only two or three of California's heiresses and millionaires.

Montanans, at present, those that are rich or merely independent, are in the migratory phase of the earlier Californian; but as New York has extended to them an even more grudging welcome than it did to aspirants from the more picturesque state, they visit it, after successive social disappointments, merely for its dressmakers and those exterior advantages that may be exchanged for gold; the majority migrate to "The Coast," more particularly to Southern California. There they not only find relief on the sea-level from an altitude that plays havoc with the nerves, but, in the mushroom Southern cities, social position may be had for the asking, and every advantage for growing children.