How to Use This Site
The Life and Times of Florence Kelley in Chicago, 1891-1899 is both a web site and document repository (archive). Three of the web site’s sections - Florence Kelley, Historical Context and Legal Context - provide a lens with which to examine the documents in the archive:
Florence Kelley Leign Bienen, Project Director, provides a series of vignettes of Florence Kelley’s 9 years in Chicago. These provide extensive linkage to related material in the archive.
Historical Context Strategic events and personalities in Chicago of the 1880’s and 1890’s interacted to produce a setting ripe for social change.
Legal Context Biographies of mayors, judges, alderman (and a governor) give insight into the key legal and political figures of the day. Professor Bienen also describes 3 landmark court cases, Florence Kelley’s factory inspection reports, and The Law As Storyteller.
Archives Browse the approximately 50,000 pages in the Archives by document type - e.g. government reports, factory inspection reports, newspaper articles, periodical articles, books, dissertations or correspondence. The documents are fully-downloadable.
Note To Geneologists The Factory Inspection Reports and other documents here include the names and addresses of companies and many references to individuals.
Image Library
A library of several hundred photos is accessed with each page view. Some pages -e.g. Lives of Children - have one or more specific images directly associated with them.
