The Truest Picture of a Time

Florence Allen Inch, M. D. (1875-1954) was an accomplished scholar, physician, community leader, and social reformer who was the first woman to run for public office in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a year before the passage of the 19th Amendment. As a typical woman of her day, she gave up her professional career for the traditional role of wife and mother, but she never abandoned her principles or intellectual and creative pursuits. Aware of the value of the experiences of "ordinary people" for future generations, she wrote a memoir of her childhood in Rochester, New York, which provides a fascinating look at late 19th century middle class life.