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Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt papers

 Collection
Call Number: MS 315

Scope and Contents

Correspondence, memoranda, printed material, and miscellanea relating to Kitchelt's work on behalf of international peace, through the Connecticut League of Nations Association and the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, 1924-45.

The papers document only Kitchelt's work in the peace movement and do not focus on many of her other socio-political activities. The papers detail the levels of activity in several Connecticut towns and cities. As executive secretary of the Connecticut League of Nations Association, Kitchelt served as a source for information on regional activities.

The Kitchelt Papers total seven and one-half linear feet (7.5') and are organized in twenty-five (25) boxes. The collection is arranged in three (3) series:

I. Connecticut League of Nations Association, 1924-1945

II. Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, 1939-1942

III. Topical Files,1921-1947

Kitchelt selectively divided her papers by area of geographic and/or topical interest and donated these portions to various repositories. Other academic institutions with Kitchelt materials include Columbia University, Cornell University, Radcliffe College, and Smith College.

Dates

  • 1920-1947

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright status for collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt in 1943, 1945-1948, and 1956; gift of Anna Donovan, 1986.

Arrangement

Arranged in three series. I. Connecticut League of Nations Association, 1924-1945. II. Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, 1939-1942. III. Topical Files, 1920-1947.

Extent

9 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0315

Abstract

The papers consist of correspondence, memoranda, printed material, and miscellanea relating to Florence Kitchelt's work on behalf of international peace, through the Connecticut League of Nations Association and the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, 1924-1945. Among the topics covered in the papers are Kitchelt's peace efforts in Connecticut, and related organizational goals, struggles, and activities. These papers document only Kitchelt's work in the peace movement and do not focus on many of her other social-political activities. The papers detail the levels of activity in several Connecticut towns and cities. As executive secretary of the Connecticut League of Nations Association, Kitchelt served as a source for information on regional activities.

Biographical / Historical

Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt was born in Rochester, New York, on December 17, 1874 to Frederick Holland and Jennie Ledyard (Wilcox) Cross. She attended Wells College in Aurora, New York, graduating in 1897 with an A.B. Throughout her early career Kitchelt was a social reform worker at a number of settlement houses in New York City and state. Immediately after college Kitchelt was a resident and volunteer worker caring for dependent and delinquent youth at the George Junior Republic in Freeville New York. She spent the next four years working for the College Settlement on the lower east side of Manhattan and its summer location in Mount Ivy, New York. In 1903 she was the head worker of an Italian American settlement called the "Little Italy House" in Brooklyn, New York. For a short time in 1904 she was a voluntary probation officer for women at the reformist Essex Market Court. From 1904 to 1905 Kitchelt worked at the Lowell House in New Haven, Connecticut.

After spending several months in Italy learning about the conditions from which her many immigrant cases came, Kitchelt returned to her hometown of Rochester, New York. In 1907 she opened "The Housekeeping Center" in an Italian neighborhood there, and the center operated under her supervision until1910. In June 1911, she married New York socialist agitator Richard Kitchelt.

By 1915 Florence Kitchelt had become a suffragette, continuing her work when she moved to New Haven, Connecticut three years later. There she became the Citizenship Director of the Connecticut League of Women Voters in 1920, and served as the Executive Director of the Connecticut branch of the League of Nations Association (CLNA) for twenty years beginning in 1924. During 1943 she was Chairman of the Connecticut Committee for the Equal Rights Amendment, a group she supported until 1956 when she and her husband moved to Ohio to live with Florence's sister Dorothy Zeiger.

Kitchelt was also a dedicated peace activist and worked with a variety of organizations to pursue pacifist goals, including thethe Connecticut Council on International Relations, the National Council for the Prevention of War, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Throughout her lifetime, Kitchelt was an active socialist, pacifist, member of the Unitarian society, and author of several books of poetry, a prose work called The World's Work , and editor for the Rochester magazine The Common Good. She died in Wilberforce, Ohio, on April 4, 1961.

Title
Guide to the Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt Papers
Status
Under Revision
Author
compiled by William E. Brown, Jr.
Date
January 1984
Description rules
Finding Aid Created In Accordance With Manuscripts And Archives Processing Manual
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository

Contact:
Yale University Library
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven CT 06520-8240 US
(203) 432-1735
(203) 432-7441 (Fax)

Location

Sterling Memorial Library
Room 147
120 High Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Opening Hours