Florence Finch Kelly (March 27, 1858 – December 17, 1939) was an American

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

, suffragist, journalist and author of novels and short stories.

Biography

Florence Finch was born in Girard, Illinois, March 27, 1858. She was the youngest child of two daughters and six sons of James Gardner Finch and Mary Ann Finch (''née'' Purdum). Her father was a farmer in Illinois and Kansas, where the family moved by covered wagon. Charles Sumner Finch, one of her brothers, became a newspaper publisher in Kansas. Kelly attended a county high school in Miami County, Kansas and graduated from the University of Kansas with A.B. in 1881 and with A.M. in 1884. She married in Boston the newspaper publisher Allen P. Kelly on 9 December 1884; they had a son, Morton, who died in childhood and another son, Sherwin Kelly, who became a noted

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...

. Kelly contributed many articles to the '' Boston Globe'' and the anarchist periodical '' Liberty''. In 1906, she visited New Zealand and

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to study the effects of social and economic legislation in those countries and wrote numerous magazine articles related to the social and economic changes. She worked on the staff of the '' New York Times'' as a book reviewer from 1906 to the mid 1930s. In addition to seven novels and numerous short stories and magazine articles on literary, artistic, and economic subjects, Florence Finch Kelly wrote an autobiography ''Flowing Stream: The Story of Fifty-six Years in American Newspaper Life'' (1939). She died in

New Hartford, Connecticut New Hartford is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 6,658 at the 2020 census. The town center is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as the New Hartford Center census-designated place (CDP). The town is ma ...

in 1939.Kelly, Florence Finch (1858–1939) – Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia.com
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Selected works

Novels

*''Frances: A Story for Men and Women'' (1889) *''On the Inside'' (1890)
''With Hoops of Steel''
(1900)
''The Delafield Affair''
(1909)
''Rhoda of the Underground''
(1909)
''The Fate of Felix Brand''
(1913)
''The Dixons: A Story of American Life through Three Generations''
(1921)

Short story collection

''Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories''
(1911)

References

External links