merged). Educational and elected service In 1867, Fitzgerald was elected Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of California, serving in this position for four years. During his administration he was instrumental in the establishment of an institution that has since become the University of California, Berkeley. The State Normal School was permanently located and equipped at this time, as well. Various reforms were made in California education and great advancement was realized in the same. During this period, Fitzgerald also offered himself for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. He was also a Regent of the University of California for four years, and the Chairman of the Committee on Instruction. Fitzgerald also filled the Chair of Homiletics in the Pacific Methodist College, and was for a time the President of that institution. In 1867, Fitzgerald was originator and treasurer of a movement in California for the relief of sufferers in the South following the American Civil War. Nearly $100,000 in gold was raised and forwarded to the relief committees of the several Southern States. Resumed journalistic career In 1878, Fitzgerald went to the headquarters of the (Southern) Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, Tennessee to become editor of the Nashville Christian Advocate, the official periodical of the Southern Church, with over 25,000 subscribers. He also edited and published Fitzgerald's Home Newspaper and Educational Journal. Episcopal ministry After twelve years in his present editorship, Fitzgerald was elected a Bishop of the M.E. Church, South. He presided over Annual Conferences from Maryland to California. Selected writings John B. McFerrin: A Biography (1888) Judge Longstreet: A Life-Sketch (1891) Landon Cabell Garland, LL.D. (1896) Lovick Pierce, D.D. (1896) Whetstone: The Day and the Word (1897) California Sketches (1912) See also List of bishops of the United Methodist Church References Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Vol. 1–7, edited by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill, NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1979–96. Leete, Frederick DeLand, Methodist Bishops. Nashville, The Methodist Publishing House, 1948. Parkinson, R.R. (compiler), Pen Portraits: Autobiography Of State Officers, Legislators, Prominent Business And Professional Men Of The Capital Of the State Of California; Also, Of Newspaper Proprietors, Editors, And Members Of The Corps Reportorial, Sacramento, California, 1877–78. The Heritage of Caswell County, North Carolina, Jeannine D. Whitlow, Editor, 1985. External links Caswell County Historical Association, Yanceyville, North Carolina, articles on Oscar Penn Fitzgerald, including a Photo of the Bishop 1829 births 1911