Abstract
The Florence McClure Photograph Collection (approximately 1985-1997) consists of color photographic prints. Images show McClure and members of the Las Vegas, Nevada Community Action Against Rape (CAAR) organization that she co-founded with Sandi Petta in 1973. Also included are images of Nevada public figures and several travel images from China.
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Scope and Contents Note
The Florence McClure Photograph Collection (approximately 1985-1997) consists of color photographic prints. Images show McClure and members of the Las Vegas, Nevada Community Action Against Rape (CAAR) organization that she co-founded with Sandi Petta in 1973. Also included are images of Nevada public figures and several travel images from China.
Access Note
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Arrangement
Materials remain as they were received.
Biographical / Historical Note
Born Florence Alberta Schilling in Centralia, Illinois on September 26, 1919, Florence McClure attended MacMurray College for Women in Jacksonville, Illinois before transferring to Hardin Brown Business College, also in Jacksonville, where she graduated in October 1941.
During World War II, she worked a series of jobs for the government supporting the US war effort. She met her husband, James McClure, a US Air Force officer, while working for the Security and Intelligence Division in Miami, Florida. The couple had two children, James and Carolyn.
Following her husband’s retirement from the Air Force, the family moved to California and then to Las Vegas, Nevada. McClure began working as an assistant to Burton Cohen at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino. She later worked at the Desert Inn Hotel and Casino and as an office manager for Howard Hughes.
McClure joined women’s organizations including the League of Women Voters and the Soroptimists. She also enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1971. In 1973, McClure and Sandi Petta founded the Community Action Against Rape (CAAR), in an effort to advocate for victims, including sensitivity training for police and medical professionals and funding for rape test kits.
After retiring from CAAR in 1984, McClure devoted her efforts to helping incarcerated women maintain ties with their children and to navigate the Nevada prison system. She lobbied the state to locate the women’s prison near Las Vegas so the women imprisoned there would still be able to have their children visit. In April 2007 the Nevada State Senate passed a bill to rename the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Facility as the Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center. McClure died in 2009.
Sources:
Blasky, Mike. "McClure, activist for women's rights, dies."
Moor, Angela. “Florence McClure.”
Preferred Citation
Florence McClure Photograph Collection, approximately 1985-1997. PH-00169. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Acquisition Note
Materials were donated by Frances McClure in 2003; accession number 2003-23.
Processing Note
Materials were inventoried by Hana Gutierrez in 2016. In 2020, as part of an archival backlog elimination project, Melise Leech revised the collection description to bring it into compliance with current professional standards.