From collection Candidates
![Ketchum, Florence L.](https://cdn1.historyit.com/iiif/2/5edfd98ccc4f69.54593064/6626b8bfe2a620.81141551.jpg/full/360,/0/default.jpg?no_errors=1)
Florence L. Ketchum was the Democratic, Socialist, and Prohibtionist party candidate for County Clerk in Orange County, New York in 1918. In 1907 Ketchum abandoned her career as a dramatic reader and joined her father in running The Warwick Valley Dispatch, a newspaper founded in 1885 by George Ketchum. Florence became managing editor, and in 1918 took it over completely. She was a friend of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt for many years, and served as a Democratic state committeewoman from Orange County.