Katharine Conway "Kitty" Felton (July 7, 1873 – August 8, 1940) was the head of Associated Charities in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
at the turn of the 20th century.
Felton was born in
Oakland, California
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
, on July 7, 1873, the daughter of a prominent San Francisco Bay Area family. Her father, John Brooks Felton, was a judge and mayor of Oakland and has the
Santa Cruz County town of
Felton, California
Felton is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 4,489 as of 2020 census and according to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , all of it land.
History
Felto ...
named after him. She was called "the conscience of the city" because of her dedication to
social work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...
.
In 1901, at the age of 28, Felton was appointed director of Associated Charities (now the
Felton Institute--formerly the Family Service Agency of San Francisco). In 1902, she created the Children's Service Agency of San Francisco, which developed the first foster care system in California.
Felton drafted nearly all of the State's early legislation covering welfare and relief according to the "Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work", Volume 13, 1901.
In 1928, with the help of her friend, architect
Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect. He worked primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, designing public buildings, including the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and also private houses, ...
, she built what was the office building of Family Service Agency at 1010 Gough Street in San Francisco.
She died of cancer on August 8, 1940.
References
External links
Jean Burton, ''Katharine Felton and Her Social Work in San Francisco''(
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
Press, 1947) in the
UC Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...
collection
Katharine Felton in Memoriam UC Berkeley*
*
Felton Institute WebsiteFSA Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Felton, Katharine
1873 births
1940 deaths
1906 San Francisco earthquake
History of the San Francisco Bay Area
People from Oakland, California
Social care in the United States