Grace Pauline Kelley was born on December 16, 1894, in Chicago, and passed away on October 12, 1967, in Winnetka, Illinois. She was Blanche Loomis’s youngest child and William Woodruff Kelley’s youngest sibling. Her time at Vassar College came before she wed Frank C. Paul. They had two daughters, Jane Paul Martin and Ruth Bancroft-Paul, who created the literary agency Curtis Brown Ltd. and eventually combined it with the British publisher Curtis Brown Group Plc.
She and her husband were influential participants in the American Progressive movement and frequently entertained authors including Anais Nin, Archibald MacLeish, and Thomas Mann. They participated actively in church affairs after becoming founding members of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in 1929. Additionally, Kelley served as vice president of the American Civil Liberties Union and as president of the PEN American Center in the past. Grace Pauline Kelley was a devoted supporter of women’s suffrage and civil rights.
On October 12, 1967, she passed away at the age of 72. The Grace Pauline Kelley Papers can be found in the Minnesotan St. John’s University library’s archives.
In 1910, Frank and Grace emigrated to Santa Barbara, California, where Frank started a company as a banker and lawyer before becoming the founder of the Bank of Santa Barbara and the Canary Islands Company, which owned five islands off the coast of Africa.
Grace Pauline Kelley’s career
In 1913, she joined the Los Angeles Board of Regents as one of the first women. Additional, she served on the Los Angeles City Planning Commission. In 1914, Governor George Pardee selected her to serve on the California State Board of Charities and Corrections.
Ms. Kelley continued her husband’s work on public issues and her own interests in international relations when he passed away in 1925. She and George H. Humphrey, who would later serve as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president, formed the Santa Barbara Bank and Trust Company in 1929. After a vote by the shareholders, the Bank eventually changed its name to the Santa Barbara National Bank and amalgamated with Wells Fargo in 2005.
She also served as president and vice president of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, where Grace was a trustee. She assumed control of The Huntington Library under her direction and thanks to Henry Huntington’s generosity. Grace presided over the organisation from 1930 to 1960 while still remaining a trustee up until her passing.
Grace Kelley was chosen as Earl Warren’s deputy governor in 1943 and then appointed chairman of the California Highway Commission in 1948.
As a prominent figure in Californian culture, Grace Pauline Kelley made her mark in Santa Barbara. She served as a trustee and president of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, president and vice-president of the Santa Barbara National Bank, a member of the Vassar College faculty where she taught American literature, and vice-president of the PEN American Center. Grace was also a member of the Los Angeles Board of Regents. She served as Los Angeles’s municipal planning commissioner for almost thirty years.
Archives of St. John’s University in Minnesota, Grace Kelley Papers
In the Minnesotan St. John’s University archives are the Grace Pauline Kelley files. Grace Kelley’s archives include letters and news articles from her time working as an author, lawyer, banker, educator, and philanthropist. The press articles are mostly about Grace Kelley’s Santa Barbara-base endeavours, successes, and activities. References to her writing and political career can be found in the press clippings. The carte-de-visite pictures show Grace Kelley both alone and with her family as well as in public places all across Santa Barbara.
During her time at Vassar College from 1912 through 1919, Grace Kelley mostly wrote the letters as personal correspondence to her family and friends. The letters include those that Grace Kelley wrote to her mother Blanche Loomis Kelley, to friends who were Vassar College students at the time, and to family friends, as well as letters from William Woodruff Kelley, Grace Kelley’s father.
She was “a friend of Pauline Bancroft and John Hopkins (Ruth Bancroft-parents), Paul’s involved in women’s suffrage and in many progressive causes,” according to another press clipping from St. John’s University in Minnesota.
A portrait of Grace Kelley with the comment “She was an active missionary, including work in China where she lived for several years” is among the other press clippings in the collection that mention her work as a writer and political figure.
There are currently only two files, both of which include press clippings:
Roberta Strauss Feuerverger penned a biography of Grace Pauline Kelley in 1982, and the University of New Mexico Press released it.
Weekly Publishers, May 7, 1982
Rebecca Fitting provided a review of Feuerverger’s book for the “Los Angeles Times” in January 1982.
The article “Historicizing Santa Barbara’s Island History” on page 9 of the spring/fall 2015 issue of the journal “Beyond Borders” has a brief mention of Grace Pauline Kelley. There is a picture of Grace Kelley with her daughters Maria Douglas and Ruth Bancroft-Paul on that page, along with the citation “Grace Pauline Kelley, who was one of Santa Barbara’s most distinguished citizens.” According to Jerilyn Watson, who wrote the piece, “the Island served as the setting for her initiatives and her philanthropy, so it is inevitable that she remains a prominent point in the cultural life of Santa Barbara.”
The University of New Mexico Press released Roberta Strauss Feuerverger’s biography of Grace Pauline Kelley in 1982. Her biography provides information on her career and personal life as a businessman, author, and educator.
Santa Barbara, 1980, March/April
November 17, 1982, in “The Santa Barbara Independent”
Over 1,000 lectures on a variety of topics were delivered by Kelley. Her list of subjects comprised:
The State of California’s Department of Corrections produced a newsletter called “Broadsides” in December 1918 additionally “The Woman’s Journal,” a publication run by the National American Woman Suffrage Association before becoming the National Woman’s Party.
Several records in the Grace Pauline Kelley documents kept in the archives at St. John’s University in Minnesota show that Grace Kelley was a politically engage participant while she was a student at Vassar College (1912-1919).
While attending Vassar College, Grace Pauline Kelley actively participated in Theta Sigma Phi.
Both the New York State Bar Association Journal, Volume VII 1900, and the American Bar Association Journal, Watertown Lawyer, Volume 8, No. 4, 1905–1906 both list Grace Pauline Kelley. Pages 749-750.
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