Papers of Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt, 1885-1961

Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt was born in Rochester, New York, on December 17, 1874, to Frederick Holland and Jennie Ledyard (Wilcox) Cross. After graduating from high school in Rochester, she attended Wells College in Aurora, New York, and received her A.B. in 1897. From 1898 to 1900 Kitchelt was a resident and voluntary worker at the George Junior Republic in Freeville, New York, an institution for the care of dependent and delinquent children.

Between 1900 and 1907 Kitchelt was a social worker at a number of settlement houses, including the College Settlement, Rivington Street, New York City; Little Italy House, Brooklyn; Lowell House, New Haven, Connecticut; and the Davis Street Settlement in Rochester. During this time she became particularly interested in working with Italian immigrants, and spent several months of 1907 in Italy, reportedly "to gain knowledge of the conditions which surround the Italians in their native land." Returning to Rochester, she opened a housekeeping center in the city's Italian neighborhood in September 1907.

In June 1911, Kitchelt married Richard Kitchelt, a native of New York City and an active socialist. The couple had no children.

By 1915, Kitchelt had become a proponent of woman's suffrage. Moving to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1918, she continued her suffrage work. She became the Citizenship Director of the Connecticut League of Women Voters in 1920, and was Executive Director of the Connecticut League of Nations Association, 1924-1944.

Once an outspoken opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, Kitchelt became Chairman of the Connecticut Committee for the ERA in 1943. She actively supported the group until 1956 when she and her husband moved to Ohio to live with Kitchelt's sister, Dorothy Zeiger.

Kitchelt was the author of several books of poetry: Poetry in the Boston Common (1910); The Public (1912); The Twentieth Century (1912); and a book of prose, The World's Work (1912). She was also on the editorial board of The Common Good, a Rochester magazine. Throughout her life, Kitchelt was an active socialist and a member of the Unitarian Society. She died in Wilberforce, Ohio, on April 4, 1961.