Strom, Sharon Hartman

Florence Hope Luscomb (1887-1985) was a social and political activist who earned an S.B. in architecture at M.I.T. in 1909. She worked as an architect until 1917, when she became executive secretary for the Boston Equal Suffrage Association, thus beginning her long career as a political activist. For a brief biography on Luscomb visit Notable American Unitarians.

The papers of Florence Luscomb are at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

In the spring of 1971 Dr. Sharon Strom, History professor at the University of Rhode Island, was introduced to Florence Hope Luscomb by Steve Halpern, a personal friend of Strom's and former housemate of Luscomb's. Dr. Strom, who was teaching a course on social reform in the United States, invited Florence Luscomb to speak to her students about the experiences Florence had as an activitist during the suffrage campaign in Massachusetts during the early part of the 20th century. Although a committed progressive, Ms. Luscomb has been described as a pragmatic person who allowed her views to be shaped by the issues in which she was involved. She saw herself as guided by American democracy and its cornerstones: civil liberties and equality. Her interviews reflect those beliefs, even when at the time of these interviews she was advocating that the women's movement included not just the radical feminists, but women from all socio-economic and racial backgrounds.

These interviews were the foundation for Sharon Strom's book, Political Woman: Florence Luscomb and the Legacy of Radical Reform, published in 2001 and available through the HELIN catalog.

From the guide to the Florence Hope Luscomb Oral History, 1972-1973, (University of Rhode Island Library Special Collections and Archives Unit)