Florence Calvert Thorne

Florence Calvert Thorne (July 28, 1877 – March 16, 1973) was an American labour activist and long-time member of the American Federation of Labor, where she established vital statistics reporting that would go on to inform New Deal social programs.

Early life and education Thorne was born July 28, 1877, in Hannibal, Missouri. She graduated from high school as valedictorian of her class in 1896. In 1912 AFL President Samuel Gompers, who had been impressed with her graduate research, offered Thorne a job editing The American Federationist. After the end of the war, Thorne returned to the AFL, significantly contributing to Gompers' autobiography, Seventy Years of Life and Labor: An Autobiography, conducting much of the research and authoring the Appendix regarding the last months of his life. She was at his bedside when he died in 1924. The couple named the house Calvert House, later known as the Calvert Estate. Within a decade of purchasing the property, it became of interest to United States Government because the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia was expanding and beginning to encroach on the land. Thorne and Scattergood agreed to sell the land to the government provided they were allowed to live out the rest of their lives in the home. She was buried at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.