20 Facts About Florence Luscomb

Florence Hope Luscomb was an American architect and women's suffrage activist in Massachusetts.

Florence Luscomb was one of the first ten women graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Florence Luscomb's mother was a dedicated suffragist and women's rights activist.

When Florence was one and a half years old, her parents separated and she moved with her mother to Boston, while her older brother, Otis Kerro Luscomb, lived with their father.

Florence Luscomb became an ardent suffragist, initially by selling a pro-suffrage newspaper on the street.

Florence Luscomb was among the first ten women to earn a degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For example, Florence Luscomb had to inquire at twelve firms before one of them would hire her for an internship after her second year.

Ryan and Florence Luscomb shared an interest in women's suffrage and Ryan gave Florence Luscomb a degree of flexibility at work that allowed her to be active in the women's suffrage movement.

Florence Luscomb later continued her education in architecture at the newly opened Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in 1916.

Florence Luscomb accepted a position as executive secretary for the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government.

Florence Luscomb went on to work for a number of organizations in the Boston area, including the Boston chapters of the League of Women Voters, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and organizations dedicated to prison reform and factory safety.

Florence Luscomb was a charter member of the League of Women Voters, formed once women gained the vote.

Florence Luscomb helped found a local of the United Office and Professional Workers of America and served as a volunteer with the local NAACP and ACLU.

Florence Luscomb ran for public office four times, more to make her causes visible than to win.

Florence Luscomb nearly won the first race she entered, for Boston Council in 1922.

Florence Luscomb wrote an early anti-Vietnam War leaflet and later, would advise some of the founders of the American feminist movement, encouraging them to include the poor and women of color.

Florence Luscomb designed her own holiday cabin in Tamworth, New Hampshire.

Florence Luscomb had lived in various cooperative houses after her mother's death, including a Cambridge cooperative house at 64 Wendell Street.

Florence Luscomb lived there until 1980, when she moved into an elder-care facility in Watertown, Massachusetts, where she died October 13,1985, at age 98.

Florence Luscomb is commemorated on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.