Moby Dick . . . One Man's Pursuit




Florence Kelley (1859–1932)  helped establish more benign conditions in industrial society and is a major in what came to be called the Progressive Moment...
Though less well known than Jane Addams or Lilian Wald, was as remarkable a force for change in American society. She was born into comfortable circumstances and largely self-educated in her father’s library. On extended stays in Zurich with her ailing mother she attended lectures at the university, became acquainted with Russian political exiles (one of whom she married, Lazare, a character in the play), and became acquainted with the s returning to live in New York with her husband and children. Itocialist ideas promoted by the German Social Democratic Party. She translated a work by Frederick Engels before was the failure of the marriage which led her, three children in tow, to Chicago and Hull House as the play opens. Characteristic of her approach to ameliorating the conditions that surrounded the settlement house, was her carrying out a detailed inventory of living and working conditions in a one mile radius, a project that gained the attention of reformers around the country and government. Liberal Governor Altgeld appointed Florence the state’s first factory inspector. In New York she headed the National Consumers League, and it was through that association that she provided data and observations to Louis Brandeis. The creation of the U.S. Children’s Bureau in 1912 came from the inspiration of Kelley and Wald at Henry Street.
Florence Kelley helped establish more benign conditions in industrial society and is a major in what came to be called the Progressive Moment, which created so much of the standards for working and living conditions tht later generations enjoy. Her mantra of “Investigate, educate, legislate, enforce” is as pertinent in the different conditions of today as it was in her
day. Tony Pennino’s account of this able and spirited woman will enlighten and move you.