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Part of the American
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Mary Mayer Van Kleeck 1883 ~ 1972
Miss Van Kleeck is a social reformer and
economic worker. Secretary of committee on women's work of the
Russell Sage Foundation. Miss Van Kleeck was born June 26, 1883,
in Glenham, New York. She is the daughter of Eliza Mayer, whose
father, Charles F. Mayer, was a prominent lawyer of Baltimore,
Maryland. Her father was the Rev. Robert Boyd Van Kleeck, of
Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, New York.
She graduated from Smith College in
1904, and since then has been engaged in social work, holding
the following positions: During the summer of 1904, secretary.
Sea Breeze, the fresh air home of the New York Association for
Improving the Condition of the Poor; from 1905 to 1907 she was
holder of the joint fellowship of the Smith College Alumnae
Association and the College Settlements Association, during
which time the subjects of investigation were overtime work of
girls in factories and child labor in the New York City
tenements. The results of the first investigation were published
in Charities and the Commons, October 6, 1906 and the report of
the second appeared in Charities and the Com^ mans, January 18,
1908.
From 1907 to 1909 Miss Van Kleeck was industrial secretary of
the Alliance Employment Bureau in charge of the investigations
of women's work. In 1909 she was secretary of the committee on
women's work of the Russell Sage Foundation, continuing the
investigations begun at the Alliance Employment Bureau and
undertaking others. The subjects of investigation have been
women's work in the bookbinding trade in New York, makers of
artificial flowers, and working girls in public evening schools
in New York. Miss Van Kleeck has also supervised an
investigation of the working girls in the millinery trade
carried on by Miss Alice P. Barrows, a member of the same staff.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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