Lella Secor Florence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lella Secor Florence
Prof. Florence
Prof. Florence
Born1887
Battle Creek
Died1966
NationalityUnited States of America

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.

Life[]

Lella Faye Secor was born in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1887.[1] In 1892 her family moved to Ventura, California before moving to Green Bay, Wisconsin and finally, in 1898, returning to Battle Creek.[2] In 1906 she became a journalist in Battle Creek and then in a variety of towns in Washington state.[3] She sailed on the Henry Ford Peace Ship in 1915 as a reporter.[1]

In 1917 Secor married the economist Philip Sargant Florence and in 1921 they moved to Cambridge, England.[1] In Cambridge she became actively involved in campaigning for birth control, and for a period lived away from her husband in a flat in Paris.[4]

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.[4] In 1930 she published Birth Control on Trial.[5] Their house Highfield became a focal point for the intellectual life of Birmingham in the 1930s[6] – 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".[7] Lella remained committed to disarmament, birth control and women's rights and continued to write and campaign.[8] She died of pneumonia following a stroke in 1966.[9]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Lella Secor Florence Papers, 1915–1936, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA: Swarthmore College, 2009, retrieved September 16, 2012
  2. ^ Florence 1978, p. 1
  3. ^ Florence 1978, p. 4
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Florence 1978, p. 267
  5. ^ Lella Secor Florence (1930). Birth control on trial. G. Allen & Unwin ltd.
  6. ^ Nicholls, Tony (March 6, 1999), "Obituaries: Professor Ronald Willetts", The Independent, London: Independent News and Media, retrieved September 16, 2012
  7. ^ Allen, Walter (1981), As I Walked Down New Grub Street: memories of a writing life, London: Heinemann, p. 37, ISBN 0434018295
  8. ^ Florence 1978, pp. 268–269
  9. ^ Florence 1978, p. 273

Bibliography[]

Retrieved from ""