The Father-Daughter Team Who Reformed America | History
Written by Black Hot Fire Network on November 3, 2022
Illustration by Eduardo Recife. Image source: Library of Congress; New York Public Library
Around 150 years ago, a father and daughter held hands in the fierce glare of a Pennsylvania steel mill: a grizzled older man and his dark-eyed daughter, their faces lit by smoldering ore. Few knew what the pair were doing there, but 12-year-old Florence Kelley understood. Her papa, Congressman William Darrah “Pig Iron” Kelley, was instructing her in the family business. Together, they would fight for working people, including the laborers doing this dangerous job. It would be a long-term project, he . . .
