1910's Government and Politics | Kellor, Frances 1873-1952

PROGRESSIVE PARTY LEADER

Social Reformer.

A social scientist who believed that government was the most effective vehicle for bringing about social reform, Frances Kellor played an important role in Theodore Roosevelt's 1912 presidential campaign. Her career in the 1910s illustrates the new political influence that educated women could exert through the application of their expertise on a range of social issues.

Early Achievements.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, on 20 October 1873, Frances Alice Kellor was raised by her mother, Mary Sprau Kellor, in a single-parent household. When Frances Kellor was two, her mother took her two daughters to live in the small town of Coldwater, Michigan, where she supported her two children by working as a housekeeper and washerwoman. Kellor later listed her pastor at the First Presbyterian Church as one of the people who motivated her involvement in social reform. After earning a law...