This dependency on others for the administrative dimension of her affairs was a constraint but not a disqualifying one. Many successful businesspeople of the period operated through agents and managers for functions they could not perform themselves. Mason’s situation was an extreme version of that common pattern, but the underlying structure — build the relationships that give you access to the capacities you lack — is the same.
## The School She Founded
The establishment of a school and daycare center for Black children is documented in accounts of Mason’s philanthropic activities, though the precise details of when it was founded, where it was located, what it taught, and how long it operated are not established in the sources available here. The general fact of its existence is well-attested.
The context for this institution is the state of Black education in California in the 1860s and 1870s. California established a public school system in 1849, but the system was organized in ways that excluded or marginally included Black children. In some cities and towns, separate schools for Black children were established; in others, Black children were simply excluded from the public schools that served white children. The quality and consistency of education available to Black children varied enormously by location and was generally significantly worse than what was available to white children.
In Los Angeles, the situation was sufficiently inadequate that Mason’s school filled a genuine gap. Children whose parents could not afford private instruction, who were excluded from or underserved by the public system, could access the institution she founded. This was not a school designed to produce intellectual elites; it was a school designed to give children the basic educational foundation that would allow them to function as full participants in the economy and civic life of the city.