Florence Kelley (1859–1932)

Florence Kelley was the daughter of William D. Kelley, an abolitionist, a founder of the Republican party, and a Congressman who worked for numerous political and social reforms. She graduated with honors from Cornell University. Refused admission to graduate programs at U.S. universities on the grounds of her gender, she travelled to Zurich, Switzerland to study law and economics. In 1884, she married Lazare Vischnevetzky, a Polish-Russian physician, with whom she had three children. When the couple divorced in 1891, she resumed the surname Kelley for herself and her children, and called herself Mrs. Kelley. She became well-known for her 1887 translation from German to English of The Condition of the Working Class in England by Friedrich Engels, with whom she corresponded frequently. Florence Kelley and her children moved to Chicago, where she worked for the Hull House settlement there. Her campaigns against sweatshops and for the minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, and women's and children's rights are still widely regarded. In 1909, Florence Kelley helped create the NAACP and served on its board for 20 years. She was appointed a delegate to the International Congress of Women for Permanent Peace in Zurich in 1919.