Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt

Kitchelt née Cross was born on December 17, 1874, in Rochester, New York.^[1] She graduated from Wells College in 1897.^[2]

Kitchelt began her career in social work by working at the George Junior Republic, in Freeville, New York. She also worked at New York College Settlement in New York City,^[3] Lowell House in New Haven, Connecticut, and Little Italy House in Brooklyn, New York. She went to Rochester, New York where she help establish the Practical House Keeping Center under the guidance of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union and the First Unitarian Church of Rochester.^[4]

In 1911 she married fellow socialist Richard Kitchelt.^[5]

In 1914, Kitchelt ran for state office (secretary of state in New York) as a Socialist. She did not win. Around this time Kitchelt also worked as an advocate for women's suffrage in New York state and Connecticut.^[4]

She was a member of the League of Nations Health Committee from 1924 through 1930.^[6]

Kitchelt donated her papers divided by topicto several institutions, including Cornell University,^[7] Radcliffe College,^[2] Smith College,^[3] and Yale University.^[8]

Kitchelt died on April 4, 1961, in Wilberforce, Ohio.^[4]

• Danelle L. Moon. "The Local is Global: Broker for Human Rights “Florence Kitchelt, Connecticut Peace Activist and Feminist,” 1920-1961" 34th Annual Meeting of the Social Science and History Association (2009)

Danelle Moon. "A Pocket of Quiet Persistence; In the Age of the Feminist Doldrums?: Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt and the Connecticut Committee for the Equal Rights Amendment, 1943-1961." Connecticut History, Volume 45, no. 2, Fall 2006.

• How Did Florence Kitchelt Bring Together Social Feminists and Equal Rights Feminists to Reconfigure the Campaign for the ERA in the 1940s and 50s?, Documents selected and interpreted by Danelle Moon and Kathryn Kish Sklar. (Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2010).