Florence Kelley (1859-1932)
Immigration to the US Resources | Other Resources
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| Title page from Facts About Immigration, by the National Civic Federation, 1906. Contributors include Florence Kelley as Secretary of the National Consumers League. |
Florence Kelley was a social reformer and political activist who championed greater government regulation and private social services in order to improve working conditions and edcuational opportunities for immigrants and women.
Kelley was born into a Pennsylvania Quaker and Unitarian family with a strong commitment to abolitionist and women's rights activism. After reading through her father's library and graduating from Cornell, Kelley studied law and government at the University of Zurich, joined the German Social Democratic party, and translated Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England into English. In 1884, Kelley married a Russian medical student and the couple had three children. After returning to the US, she divorced in 1891 before joining Jane Addams and other reformers at Hull-House, the Chicago social settlement. Her work in Hull-House, which would eventually become the most famous settlement house in the US, allowed Kelley to adopt a leadership role in the growing settlement house movement, which strove to alleviate poverty in the immigrant working class by providing social services and education through settlement houses.
In 1892, the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics hired Kelley to investigate the "sweating" system in the garment industry, and federal commissioner of labor Carroll Wright asked her to survey Chicago's 19th ward, her findings appearing in Hull House Maps and Papers. She was soon appointed chief factory inspector by Illinois Governor John Peter. She earned her law degree from Northwestern University in 1895.
In 1899 she became head of the National Consumers League (NCL), a position she held for over 30 years, and moved to Lillian Wald's Henry Street Settlement in New York City. Working for the NCL, Kelley organized local leagues and lobbied for better working conditions, a minimum wage, and shorter working hours for women, immigrant, and working-class laborers.
In 1909, Kelley also helped organize the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and in 1912 she helped to found the National Child Labor Committee. Kelley spent her final decade defending herself from attacks during the "red scare" of the 1920s and stressing the concrete gains of gender-specific labor legislation to those committed only to laws applying to both sexes. Many of Kelley's ideas were later incorporated into New Deal programs.
^ TOPImmigration to the US Resources
Listed below are digital resources from the Immigration to the US collection by, about, or related to Florence Kelley. These resources represent only a selection of what exists on these topics. More physical materials on these topics may be available at the owning repositories, some of which are open to the public.
Addams, Jane and Florence Kelley. Child Labor. Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1905.
Goldmark, Pauline Dorothea. The Truth about Wage-Earning Women and the State: A Reply to Miss Minnie Bronson. New York City: Distributed by National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1912
Kelley, Florence, ed. Twenty Questions about the Federal Amendment Proposed by the National Woman's Party. New York: National Consumers' League, 1922.
Kelley, Florence. Admission of Women to Universities. [S.I.: s.n., 18--?].
Kelley, Florence. Our Toiling Children. Chicago: Woman's Temperance Publication Association, 1889
Kelley, Florence. Child Labor Legislation and Enforcement in New England and the Middle States. New York : National Child Labor Committee, [1905?]
Kelley, Florence. Women in Trade Unions. New York: s.n., 1906?
Kelley, Florence. The Federal Government and the Working Children. New York City: National Child Labor Committee, 1906?
Kelley, Florence. Obstacles to the Enforcement of Child Labor Legislation. New York City: National Child Labor Committee, 1907?
Kelley, Florence. The Responsibility of the Consumer. New York City: National Child Labor Committee, 1908?
Kelley, Florence. Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation. New York: Macmillan, 1910.
Kelley, Florence. Minimum Wage Boards. New York City: National Consumers' League, 1911.
Kelley, Florence. "Factory Inspection," in Vol. 3 of Woman and the Larger Citizenship. Chicago: Civics Society, 1913-1914.
Kelley, Florence. The Present Status of Minimum Wage Legislation. New York City: National Consumers' League, 1913.
Kelley, Florence. "Women and Social Legislation in the United States," in Women in Public Life. Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1914.
Kelley, Florence. Modern Industry: In Relation to the Family, Health, Education, Morality. New York: Longmans, Green 1914.
Kelley, Florence. Women in Industry: The Eight Hours Day and Rest at Night, Upheld by the United States Supreme Court. New York: National Consumers' League, 1916.
Kelley, Florence. Wage-Earning Women in War Time: The Textile Industry (with Special Reference in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Woolen and Worsted Yarn, and in Rhode Island to the Work of Women at Night). [N.p., n.d.].
^ TOPOther Resources
Listed below are web sites about, or related to, Florence Kelley. These resources are listed to point users to further information outside the context of the Immigration to the US collection. The Open Collections Program and Harvard University bear no responsibility for the contents of these web sites. This list is not intended to be comprehensive.
Brown, Nina. Florence Kelley: Slums of the Great Cities Survey Maps, 1893. Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science.
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