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Not many people have heard of Frances Alice Keller (1873-1921), who was seminal in so many endeavors that she has been called a Founding Mother of modern America. Historians mostly know her for having led the Americanization movement, which greeted immigrants from 1906 –1921.

Here are some key things about what she did:

Used basketball to reshape women's gender
Founded the National Urban League
Studied imprisoned southern black women for two years to create the view that environmental conditions foster crime
Went undercover to protect domestic workers' rights
Held leading roles in two Presidential elections before she could vote
Got suffrage put on national party platforms for the first two times
Created and ran an alternative form of government in America
Led the Americanization movement using progressive activism
Promoted Service Learning and Adult Education
Coordinated years of multicultural immigrant parades across America
Ran America's foreign language media advertising
Launched the field of international arbitration
AND CREATED MUCH OF OUR MODERN AMERICAN IDENTITY

Frances Kellor’s Early Life:

Born in Coldwater, Michigan to a single-mother, Kellor had to drop out of high school to help her mother as a domestic servant. While still a teen, Mary and Frances Eddy took Kellor as their protégé and got her a job reporting for the town paper, the Coldwater Republican. Along with a minister, they trained her to be the sociologist she became.

Frances Kellor and Sports:

In Coldwater, Kellor had been “Alice Kellar.” Upon entering Cornell, she changed her name to the ambiguously gendered name of Frances Kellor. While becoming the third woman to get a law degree from Cornell, she fought for women’s rowing. From 1898 until 1909 she wrote about the use of athletics to make women more assertive and less feminine. She coached many women’s basketball teams. As such she has been called a harbinger of Title IX.

Frances Kellor and African – Americans:

Upon leaving Cornell, Kellor entered the University of Chicago to study criminal sociology. As a part of her training, Kellor spent nearly two years in southern penitentiaries for African American women. As a part of this work she helped launch the modern idea that environmental factors can lead to criminality. Upon moving to New York City, she founded an organization to help African American women coming north in the great migration. This organization formed today’s National Urban League.

Frances Kellor and Employment:

Upon moving to New York City, Kellor undertook an extensive study of the exploitation of domestic workers by employment agencies. In this work Kellor introduced the term “under – class” to the American lexicon. Her resulting book, Out of Work, also brought awareness of “white slavery” (prostitution) to the public. Her heavily revised second edition of Out of Work was among the first to present the view that unemployment was a Federal, rather than a personal, problem. Thus she laid the intellectual groundwork for the Federal government’s current involvement in employment.

The Love of Frances’ life: Mary Elizabeth Dreier (1875 – 1963):

While working on her first edition of Out of Work, Kellor met and fell in love with Mary Elizabeth Dreier (1875 – 1963). Dreier headed the New York Women Trade Union League and fought for suffrage. The two lived and worked together for forty-seven years. Their letters burn with longing. In them Kellor is always “seven” and Dreier “Sixy.” And, though largely Victorian in their passionate romance, enough passages convey their desire to sleep together and have romance during the night, that it is near certain that their lifelong love was more than platonic

Kellor’s Transgender Status:

In many photos Kellor is dressed entirely as a man. A childhood acquaintance confirmed that young Kellor received negative attention for walking and talking like a boy. And, again, upon leaving Coldwater, Kellor dropped the name ‘Alice’ for ‘Frances.’ Kellor wrote extensively about gender. On the whole, she denigrated feminine characteristics and urged women to adopt more masculine characteristics. She undertook political campaigns specifically to show women capable of breaking through what she called “sex cloisters.”

Kellor and Politics:

Before she could vote, Kellor took leading roles in both Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 and Charles Evans Hughes’ 1916 Presidential campaigns. These actions helped normalize women’s presence in politics. Additionally, in this capacity, she was instrumental in getting suffrage on national party platforms for the first, second, and only times. Paradoxically, she considered constant activism of more value than the vote. As such, she created “The Service” half of the Progressive Party to run the nation on the basis of constant popular agitation.

Kellor and Americanization:

Kellor led major aspects of the Americanization movement. As the first woman to head a New York State Bureau she greeted docking immigrants from 1909 – 1912. While pre-existing groups also greeted dock arrivals, she quickly moved to add industrial protection and reform. This Industrial Americanization work helped create welfare capitalism. Her Americanization Day campaign marched immigrants in native costume, as newly naturalized Americans, for long-term Americans to welcome. These parades launched a sort of multiculturalism. Her Educational Americanization campaigns laid the groundwork for adult education today. In her curriculum and Federal Americanization work, she advocated Americanizing immigrants via enrollment in progressive activism. And, Kellor headed Media Americanization as the head of an agency that controlled the majority of foreign language media advertising in America.

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Kellor Leaves Americanization:

Much of Kellor’s Americanization work sought to Americanize America itself by ending immigrant exploitation in industry and discrimination in law. As a part of this, she fought against the Red Scare and immigration restriction. As America turned to restrict immigration, Kellor championed the “International Human Being.” To this end, she advocated for international treaties to protect and welcome workers. But when the 1921 Immigration Act nearly ended immigration, Kellor left Americanization work. As she left it, Kellor denounced the Americanization movement for insensitivity to immigrants.

Kellor Creates International Arbitration:

Kellor transitioned from studying international laws pertaining to immigration to investigating the place of law in the League of Nations. It has been said that her findings influenced the prominence of the World Court in the United Nations’ governance structure. In 1926 she launched the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and she served as its Vice-President until her death in 1952. In the year of her death, eleven governments had adopted her arbitration guidelines and the AAA performed arbitrations between 47 nations. Today the AAA arbitrates hundreds of thousands of international disputes a year. Ultimately, her work has been crucial in the creation of the modern global order.