Catherine Galbraith

Catherine Galbraith (née Catherine Merriam Atwater; January 19, 1913 – October 1, 2008) was an American author who was the wife of economist and author John Kenneth Galbraith, and the mother of four sons: diplomat and political analyst, Peter W. Galbraith, economist James K. Galbraith, attorney J. Alan Galbraith, and Douglas Galbraith who died in childhood of leukemia.

Catherine, also known as Kitty, was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of Alice Caroline (née Merriam) and Charles Woodard Atwater, a lawyer who later served as the Consul General for Siam and the granddaughter of Wilbur Olin Atwater, the inventor of the calorimeter and chemist known for his studies of human metabolism and nutrition.

Galbraith attended Smith College, spending her junior year at the Sorbonne, and obtaining her bachelor's degree in Romance languages from Smith in 1934. She then took graduate courses in German language at the University of Munich, where she lived in the same rooming house-dormitory as Unity Mitford, a girlfriend of Adolf Hitler. She was awarded a Master of Arts degree from Radcliffe College in 1936. Galbraith was fluent in Hindi and several other languages.

She was introduced to her future husband at a café while she was a graduate student at Radcliffe. The couple married on September 17, 1937, at the Reformed Church of North Hempstead, New York. The newlyweds were to sail on the MV Britannic to London, where J.K. Galbraith had plans to spend the year as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge studying under economist John Maynard Keynes, but Keynes was struck with a heart attack. Instead, Kitty introduced John to Europe, driving through the countryside and visiting towns and cathedrals.

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