Lella Secor Florence
Lella Secor Florence | |
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Born | February 13 1887 Battle Creek, Michigan, US |
Died | January 14 1966 |
Lella Secor Florence (February 13, 1887 – January 14, 1966), née Lella Faye Secor, was an American writer, journalist, pacifist, feminist and pioneer of birth control.
Early life
[edit]Lella Faye Secor was born in Battle Creek, Michigan.[1] In 1892 her family moved to Ventura, California before moving to Green Bay, Wisconsin and finally, in 1898, returning to Battle Creek.[2] Her father abandoned the family, and her mother ran a boarding house.[3]
Journalism career and peace activist
[edit]In 1906 she became a journalist in Battle Creek and then in a variety of towns in Washington state.[4] She sailed on the Henry Ford Peace Ship in 1915 as a reporter.[1] She co-founded two pacifist organisations that aimed to keep the United States out of World War One: the American Neutral Conference Committee and the Emergency Peace Federation.
Personal life
[edit]In 1917 Secor married the economist Philip Sargant Florence. They had two children, both sons.[5]
Feminist activist
[edit]In 1921, Secor moved to Cambridge, England with her husband after he began working at University of Cambridge.[1] She joined the Women's International League.[[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources|
Ivor Montagu wrote of Secor in his autobiography that she was "a freckled American redhead who had been a spirited battler against the violence with which the U.S. authorities assailed pacifist protest.'[7]
For a period she lived away from her husband in a flat in Paris.[8]
In 1929, Philip was appointed to the chair in commerce at the University of Birmingham and the couple moved to the Birmingham district of Selly Park, where they bought a large house called Highfield.[8] In 1930 she published Birth Control on Trial.[9] Their house Highfield became a focal point for the intellectual life of Birmingham in the 1930s[10] – the poet Louis MacNeice lived in the converted coachman's quarters and the writer Walter Allen described how "Most English Left-Wing intellectuals and American intellectuals visiting Britain must have passed through Highfield between 1930 and 1950".[11] Lella remained committed to disarmament, birth control and women's rights and continued to write and campaign.[12] She died of pneumonia following a stroke in 1966.[13]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Lella Secor Florence Papers, 1915–1936, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA: Swarthmore College, 2009, retrieved September 16, 2012
- ^ Florence 1978, p. 1
- ^ a b Owl, Cambridge Town (February 4, 2019). "Lella Secor Florence – stepping up equalities campaigning in interwar Cambridge". Lost Cambridge. Retrieved September 22, 2021.
- ^ Florence 1978, p. 4
- ^ "Secor, Lella | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved September 22, 2021.
- ^ [[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources|
page needed ]]]_6-0">a [[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources|page needed]] ]_6-1">b Florence 1978, p. [page needed]. - ^ Montagu, Ivor Goldsmid Samuel (1970). The youngest son: autobiographical sketches. London: Lawrence & Wishart. ISBN 0-85315-208-X. OCLC 100443.
- ^ a b Florence 1978, p. 267
- ^ Lella Secor Florence (1930). Birth control on trial. G. Allen & Unwin ltd.
- ^ Nicholls, Tony (March 6, 1999), "Obituaries: Professor Ronald Willetts", The Independent, London: Independent News and Media, retrieved September 16, 2012
- ^ Allen, Walter (1981), As I Walked Down New Grub Street: memories of a writing life, London: Heinemann, p. 37, ISBN 0434018295
- ^ Florence 1978, pp. 268–269
- ^ Florence 1978, p. 273
Bibliography
[edit]- Florence, Barbara Moench, ed. (1978), Lella Secor: a diary in letters, 1915–1922, New York: Burt Franklin & Co., ISBN 0891020713, retrieved September 16, 2012