Katharine Conway "Kitty" Felton (July 7, 1873 – August 8, 1940) was the head of Associated Charities in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

at the turn of the 20th century. Felton was born in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, on July 7, 1873, the daughter of a prominent San Francisco Bay Area family. Her father, John Brooks Felton, was a judge and mayor of Oakland and has the Santa Cruz County town of

Felton, California Felton is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 4,489 as of 2020 census and according to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , all of it land. History Named ...

named after him. She was called "the conscience of the city" because of her dedication to

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...

. In 1901, at the age of 28, Felton was appointed director of Associated Charities (now the Felton Institute--formerly the Family Service Agency of San Francisco). In 1902, she created the Children's Service Agency of San Francisco, which developed the first foster care system in California. Felton drafted nearly all of the State's early legislation covering welfare and relief according to the "Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work", Volume 13, 1901. In 1928, with the help of her friend, architect

Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in ...

, she built what was the office building of Family Service Agency at 1010 Gough Street in San Francisco. She died of cancer on August 8, 1940.

References

External links

Jean Burton, ''Katharine Felton and Her Social Work in San Francisco''
(

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Press, 1947) in the

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

collection
Katharine Felton in Memoriam UC Berkeley
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Felton Institute Website

FSA Official Website

signed by Felton and others] {{DEFAULTSORT:Felton, Katharine 1873 births 1940 deaths 1906 San Francisco earthquake History of the San Francisco Bay Area People from Oakland, California Social care in the United States