Florence Jaffy

Florence Irene Jaffy (August 4, 1917 – October 21, 1985), also known as Florence Conrad, was an American economist. She taught at the College of San Mateo, and was research director of the Daughters of Bilitis.

Florence Jaffy
Born	(1917-08-04)August 4, 1917 New York
Died	October 21, 1985(1985-10-21) (aged 68) San Francisco, California
Other names	Florence Conrad
Occupation	Economist
Known for	Research director, Daughters of Bilitis

Early life and education

Florence Jaffy was born in New York, the daughter of Max Aaron Jaffy and Pauline Reich Jaffy.^[1] Her family was Jewish; her father was a civil engineer born in Russia, and her maternal grandparents were from Central Europe. She graduated from Olney High School in Philadelphia in 1935, and graduated from Pennsylvania State College in 1943.^[2] She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa while she was in college.^[3] She pursued further studies in economics, earning a master's degree at the University of Chicago.^[4]

Career

Jaffy worked at the Division of Research and Statistics of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the late 1940s.^[5] She worked in Paris as an economic analyst with the United States Department of State in the early 1950s.^[6] Beginning in 1958,^[7] she was a professor of economics at the College of San Mateo.^[8] She was awarded tenure in 1961.^[9] She was a longtime member of the American Civil Liberties Union.^[10]

In 1960s, under the name "Florence Conrad", Jaffy was research director for the Daughters of Bilitis; this work involved working with researchers who wanted to survey the Daughters of Bilitis members, and collecting published research on homosexuality. She also corresponded with activists, and wrote letters of protest to authors and academics who misrepresented lesbian lives. She wrote book reviews for The Ladder.^[11] She worked with Barbara Gittings and Barbara Grier on The Ladder, but they did not always agree on the publication's priorities.^[12] "I strongly favor 'integration'," she wrote to Gittings, "but this means a sense of some things held in common with the rest of humanity; it does not mean acceptance of society's stigma."^[13]

Publications

Jaffy's research appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics,^[14] and she wrote articles for The Ladder under her pseudonym.^[15][16] She also wrote reports for the Federal Reserve Board's Review of Foreign Developments, often with fellow economist Frank M. Tamagna as co-author.^[17][18][19]

• "The U.K.-South Africa Financial Agreement" (1947)^[18]
• "Geneva Draft of the I.T.O. Charter: Exchange Controls and Quantitative Restrictions" (1947, with Frank M. Tamagna)^[18]
• "Foreign Gold and Dollar Resources" (1947, with Frank M. Tamagna)^[18]
• "Extension of Sterling Convertibility" (1947)^[18]
• "Prospective Drawings on the International Monetary Fund" (1947)^[18]
• "U.S. Balance of Payments Prospects for 1948-49" (1948, with Frank M. Tamagna)^[17]
• "U.S. Balance of Payments Outlook for 1948" (1948, with Frank M. Tamagna)^[17]
• "British Payments Agreements and Sterling Agreements since August 20, 1947" (1948)^[17]
• "Clandestine Capital Movements in Balance of Payments Estimates: A Comment" (1951)^[14]
• "DOB Questionnaire Reveals Some Facts About Lesbians" (1959, reprinted in 2001)^[16]

Personal life and legacy

Jaffy died in 1985, at the age of 68, in San Francisco. Her obituary in the Bay Area Reporter remembered her work to destigmatize homosexuality in the psychiatric field.^[20] The GLBT Historical Society holds a small collection of her papers.^[11] The College of San Mateo offers a Florence Jaffy Memorial Scholarship, for a student in the social sciences who "has had experience promoting civil liberties and political equality."^[21] She was portrayed by Adrienne Barker in the historical audiodrama podcast Queer Serial, produced and written by Devlyn Camp.^[22]

References

1. "Jaffy". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1973-11-13. p. 18. Retrieved 2022-06-02 – via Newspapers.com.
2. "525 Get Degrees at State College". Shamokin News-Dispatch. 1943-10-22. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-06-03 – via Newspapers.com.
3. "In Honorary Fraternity". Altoona Mirror. October 27, 1943. p. 2. Retrieved June 2, 2022 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
4. "Name 16 South Students U. of C. Fellows". Chicago Tribune. 1945-04-22. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-06-03 – via Newspapers.com.
5. Metzler, Lloyd Appleton; Triffin, Robert; Haberler, Gottfried (1947). International Monetary Policies. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-405-11239-3.
6. United States. Dept. of State (1953). Foreign service list. Washington : U.S. Govt. Print. Off. – via Newspapers.com.
7. "New Teachers". The Times. 1958-09-03. p. 9. Retrieved 2022-06-03 – via Newspapers.com.
8. "New History, Economics Classes Being Offered". The Times. 1961-01-25. p. 51. Retrieved 2022-06-03 – via Newspapers.com.
9. "21 Teachers Win Tenure at SM College". The Times. 1961-04-27. p. 9. Retrieved 2022-06-03 – via Newspapers.com.
10. Gallo, Marcia M. (October 16, 2020). "For Love and For Life, LGBTQ People Are Not Going Back". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved 2022-06-03.
11. "Florence Jaffy papers". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
12. Passet, Joanne (2016-11-01). Indomitable: The Life of Barbara Grier. Bella Books. ISBN 978-1-59493-664-7.
13. Self, Robert O. (2012-09-18). All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s. Macmillan. pp. 164–165, 170–171. ISBN 978-0-8090-9502-5.
14. Jaffy, Florence (1951-02-01). "Clandestine Capital Movements in Balance of Payments Estimates:1 A Comment". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 65 (1): 142–145. doi:10.2307/1879507. ISSN 0033-5533. JSTOR 1879507.
15. Vigiletti, Elyse (2015). "Normalizing the "Variant" in The Ladder, America's Second Lesbian Magazine, 1956–1963". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 36 (2): 47–71. doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.36.2.0047. ISSN 0160-9009. JSTOR 10.5250/fronjwomestud.36.2.0047. S2CID 142625590.
16. Conrad (Jaffy), Florence (2001-12-01). "The Ladder 1959". Journal of Lesbian Studies. 5 (4): 1–24. doi:10.1300/J155v05n04_01. ISSN 1089-4160. S2CID 216117641.
17. "Review of Foreign Developments 1948". Federal Reserve Board. Retrieved 2022-06-03.
18. "Review of Foreign Developments 1947". The Federal Reserve Board. Retrieved 2022-06-03.
19. "Frank M. Tamagna Dies at 81". The Washington Post. May 7, 1991.
20. "Florence Conrad" Bay Area Reporter (November 7, 1985). via GLBT Historical Society, Online Searchable Obituary Database
21. "Florence Jaffy Memorial Scholarship". San Mateo County Community Colleges Foundation. Retrieved 2022-06-03.
22. "Supporting Voices". Queer Serial. Retrieved 2022-06-03.