Catherine Filene Shouse
| Catherine Filene Shouse | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Catherine Filene June 9, 1896 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Died | December 14, 1994 (aged 98) Naples, Florida |
| Alma mater |
Wheaton College Radcliffe College Harvard Graduate School of Education |
| Occupation | Editor, researcher, philanthropist |
| Spouse(s) | Alvin E. Dodd (1921–1929) Jouett Shouse (1931–1968) |
| Awards |
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977) National Medal of Arts (1994) |
Catherine Filene Shouse (June 9, 1896 – December 14, 1994) was a researcher and philanthropist. She graduated in 1918 from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She worked for the Women's Division of the U.S. Employment Service of the Department of Labor, and was the first woman appointed to the Democratic National Committee in 1925. She was also the editor of the Woman's National Democratic Committee's Bulletin (1929–32), and the first woman to chair the Federal Prison for Women Board.
Finally, she was a strong supporter of the arts, and served as chair of the President's Music Committee's Person-to-Person Program (1957–1963). In 1966 she donated her personal property, Wolf Trap Farm, to the National Park Service. This farm would go on to become Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, where Shouse would serve as founder until her death in 1994.
Catherine Filene was born on June 9, 1896, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Abraham Lincoln Filene and the former Thérèse Weill. Born into a wealthy merchandising family, her grandfather William Filene founded Filene's department store, her father was the founder of the Boston Symphony and her mother started the Boston Music School for Underprivileged Children.
When Shouse was an undergraduate student at Wheaton College, she convened a lecture series. It was the first Intercollegiate Vocational Conference for Women. The focus of the conference was to make jobs more accessible for women. The lecture series was held at Wheaton College and it initiated annual vocational conferences at Wheaton College until the 1950s. Shouse then proceeded to found Wheaton's first Vocational Bureau, which assisted alumnae in locating employment. In 1917, Shouse was able to utilize experience acquired through her undergraduate and her prior activist activities. She was employed by the Women's Division of the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor. Shouse was hired as the assistant to the chief. Three years later (1920), she published her original work, Careers for Women, which Shouse revised in 1934. Her personally signed first copy is housed in Hood College's Catherine Filene Shouse Career Center. Hood College named their career center after Shouse after her substantial contribution which enabled the college to obtain most of their modern technological equipment for worldwide career information.
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