Today’s post adds another woman to the series “Get to Know an Economics Ph.D. alumna”. Kate Holladay Claghorn studied political economy under Franklin H. Giddings at Bryn Mawr followed by coursework with William G. Sumner and Arthur T. Hadley at Yale in industrial history, advanced economics, political science, and anthropology. I have not been able to find a digital link to her 1896 Yale Ph.D. thesis “Law, Nature, and Convention: A Study in Political Theory”, but much of her published work is easily accessible now on line.
Fun Fact: Kate Holladay Claghorn was a boarder in the John R. Commons home while she worked for him on the immigration sections of the Final Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX (1902). (Source: John R. Commons, Myself, pp. 68, 76.)
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Kate Holladay Claghorn
Life and Career
1863. Born Dec. 12 in Aurora, Illinois
1892. A.B., Bryn Mawr
1892-93. Graduate work at Bryn Mawr with Professor Franklin H. Giddings, professor of political economy
1896. Ph.D. Yale University. Professors Sumner and Hadley. Studied industrial history, advanced economics, political science, and anthropology
1898 to 1900 she acted as Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae.
1900-01. Assisted John Rogers Commons in his study of immigration for the United States Census Bureau 1902. Expert in the United States Industrial Commission.
1901-1902 was research worker for the Economic Year Book.
1902. Division of Methods and Results, United States Census.
1902-1905. Assistant registrar. New York City Tenement House Department.
1905. Acting Registrar. New York City Tenement House Department.
1906-1912. Registrar. New York City Tenement House Department.
1909. Claghorn was one of 60 signers, 19 of whom were women, of the “Call for the Lincoln Emancipation Conference to Discuss Means for Securing Political and Civil Equality for the Negro” written by Oswald Garrison Villard, which became the founding document of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
1912-1932. Instructor and head of the Department of Social Research, New York School of Social Work.
1918. First woman to be elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association.
1932. Retired.
1938. Died of a cerebral hemorrhage May 22 in Greenwich where she was living.
Buried with her parents in Maple Grove Cemetery, Kew Gardens, N.Y.
Source for most items above: Yale University Obituary Record, p. 231.
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Obituary
New York, March 24.—Miss Kate Holladay Claghorn, author and sociologist, who was a member of the faculty of the New York School of Social Work from 1912 to 1932, died Tuesday night at her home in Greenwich, Conn.
Source: The Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania), Thursday, May 24, 1938, p. 2.
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Graduate School Alumnae Directory,
Yale University
[1920]
Kate Holladay Claghorn, B.A. Bryn Mawr College 1892.
Miss Claghorn received her Doctor’s degree in 1896. From 1898 to 1900 she acted as Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. From 1900 to 1901 she was Expert in the United States Industrial Commission, and in 1901-1902 was research worker for the Economic Year Book. In 1902 she worked in the Division of Methods and Results, United States Census; in 1902-1906 she was Assistant Registrar, and in 1906-1912, Registrar, of the Tenement House Department of New York City. Since 1912 she has been head of the Research Department of the New York School of Social Work.
Her dissertation is entitled “Law, Nature, and Convention: A Study in Political Theory.” She has also written “Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York,” issued as Children’s Bureau Publication, No. 32.
Source: Alumnae Graduate School, Yale University, 1894-1920. New Haven: Yale University, 1920, p. 46.
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Writers of the Day
[1897]
Kate Holladay Claghorn, whose scholarly paper, “Burke: a Centenary Perspective,” in the July Atlantic [Volume 80, No. 477 (July, 1897), pp. 84-95], shows both breadth of knowledge and maturity of thought, has only recently begun to write for publication, having but lately completed a college course. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1892, spent a year in graduate study at that institution, and then went to Yale, where she entered the graduate school, taking the degree of Ph.D. in 1896. There is an interesting fact connected with this graduation at Yale. Although Yale had granted degrees to women in 1894 and 1895, in 1896 women took part for the first time in the public commencement exercises, walking in the procession about the campus, sitting in Battell Chapel with the other candidates, and going upon the platform to receive diplomas. As Miss Claghorn happened by chance to head the line of women as they passed up to the platform, she was, it turned out, the first woman to receive as a reward for regular academic work done in the university an academic degree publicly from the hand of the president. Miss Claghorn’s particular interests are in the general field of the social sciences. At Bryn Mawr she was under the especial direction of Professor Franklin H. Giddings, then professor of political economy there, now professor of sociology at Columbia University. At Yale she studied under Professors Sumner and Hadley, following courses that they gave in industrial history, advanced economics, political science, and anthropology. Her thesis for the doctorate was a study in political theory, entitled “Law, Nature, and Convention.” While at Yale Miss Claghorn contributed to the Outlook a short article on Bryn Mawr. In the Yale Review for February, 1896 [Vol. IV. No. 4, pp. 426-440], she had an article entitled “The Ethics of Copyright.” Last winter she contributed to the Outlook five articles on “College Training for Women,” and in May she published, through Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., a book under the same title, “College Training for Women,” in which the matter printed in the Outlook is incorporated, in revised form, but which contains so much additional matter as to be practically quite a new production.
Source: The Writer, Vol. 10, No. 7 (July, 1897), pp. 102-103.
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A Card Index That Santa Claus Might Follow
[1912]
Miss Kate Claghorn is holding down a man’s job in the tenement house department because there was no man smart enough to fill it. Twice she stood the test of an examination framed in Columbia University, which was designed, if anything, to eliminate women from the competition, but which in the end eliminated the men. The position of registrar of records is one of the “fat” jobs. It has the handsome little salary of $3,000 attached to it, and it takes the statistical mind of a thinking machine to do the work that goes along with it.
An inkling of the intricacy of Miss Claghorn’s work can be got from the fact that recently she finished, in six months, a complete survey of all the five boroughs of New York City, recording on cards for instant reference the condition of every dwelling and tenement house in the city. Not a roof was passed by. Santa Claus himself might follow Miss Claghorn’s card index and no one would be overlooked at Christmas time.
Source: From Frank Parker Stockbridge. “A Woman Who Spends Over Forty Million Dollars Each Year and Some Others Who Hold Positions of Financial Power and Moral Responsibility in the Government of New York City.” The American City, vol. 6. No. 6 (June, 1912), p.816.
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Woman’s Who’s Who of America
[1914]
Claghorn, Kate Holladay, 81 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Lecturer, teacher: b. Aurora, Ill. (came to N.Y. City in infancy); dau. Charles and Martha Holladay; ed. Bryn Mawr, A.B. ’92; Yale, Ph.D. ’96. Engaged in research work for U.S. Industrial Comm’n, 1890-1901; in U.S. Census Office, 1902; ass’t registrar of records, 1902-06; registrar Tenement House Dep’t, City of N.Y., 1906-12; lecturer on permanent staff N.Y. School of Philanthropy, 1912—. Author: College Training for Women, 1897; also contributor to magazines. Mem. Women’s Political Union, N.Y. Mem. Am. Economic Ass’n, Am. Statistical Ass’n, Soc. For Italian Immigrants, Little Italy Ass’n, Women’s Univ. Club. Recreation: Music.
Source: Woman’s Who’s Who of America, 1914-1915, John William Leonard, ed. New York: American Commonwealth Company (1914), p. 178.
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DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
[1923-1924]
Miss Claghorn
The task of social research is to collect and arrange the facts needed as a basis for dealing with social problems either of the individual or the group.
Opportunities for Employment
- Field investigators and research workers in the Federal Service, as for example in the Bureau of Labor Statistics or in the Children’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, in State or Municipal Service, in organizations interested in housing or Americanization, or in some one of the various investigations or surveys undertaken under the direction of private individuals or committees, or foundations.
- Statisticians, in the Federal, State or Municipal Service, or in private organizations engaged in social work.
- Teachers of social statistics.
The demand for trained workers in this field is not yet so strong or so steady as in some others, but there are indications that the demand is growing and that students with special qualifications for this kind of work and special interest in it may be encouraged to prepare for it.
Requirements for the Diploma in this Field
Methods of Social Research (Soc. Res. 1, 2 and 3), The Method of Social Case Work (S.C.W. 1), field work in the Department of Social Case Work (S.C.W. 301) 2 days a week for one Quarter. Social Work and Social Progress (S.C.W. 3), Vocational Course in Social Research for 3 Quarters (S.C.W. 201), and additional course to total 84 points.
Soc. Res. 1. Methods of Social Research, 2 points, Fall Quarter. Miss Claghorn.
The planning of an investigation, the framing of schedules or questionnaires, the construction of statistical tables and simple diagrams.
Soc. Res. 2. Methods of Social Research, 2 points, Winter and Spring Quarters. Miss Claghorn.
Simple forms of analysis of statistical material, graphs, ratios, averages, measures of dispersion.
Soc. Res. 3. Methods of Social Research, 2 points, Spring Quarter. Miss Claghorn.
Elementary theory of probability, fitting of data to the normal curve, fitting to trend lines, correlation, linear and non-linear, reliability of measures.
Soc. Res. 4. The Immigrant, 2 points, Fall Quarter. Miss Claghorn.
Soc. Res. 5. The Immigrant, 2 points, Winter Quarter. Miss Claghorn.
To deal with people successfully, it is necessary to know something of what they are and what they think and feel. A large proportion of the persons with whom social agencies come in contact are foreigners of many different varieties, each with peculiar habits and characteristics which largely determine their reactions to the new environment. As a help toward understanding our foreign peoples, this course undertakes the study of the racial heritages, economic background, and the social institutions of the more important immigrant groups from Europe and the Near East.
Soc. Res. 201. Vocational Course, Social Investigation, Fall Winter and Spring Quarters. Miss Claghorn.
Study and practice of methods of social investigation in some special field selected according to the needs of the student or group of students electing this course. In the past, studies have been made in this Department in immigrant life, housing, and juvenile delinquency.
Soc. Res. 301. Field Work, 4 points.
Two days a week for one Quarter in some agency carrying on social research may be arranged in accordance with the special needs of the student.
Source: Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, the New York School of Social Work, General Announcement 1923-1924 (April Bulletin), pp. 30-31.
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Students that have received the Degree of Bachelor of Arts from Bryn Mawr College
Kate Holladay Claghorn. Group, Greek and Latin.
Leonia, N.J. Prepared by Mr. Caskie Harrison, Brooklyn, New York City: passed examination covering the Freshman year in Columbia College, 1888-89. A.B., 1892; Ph.D., Yale University, 1896. Graduate Student in Sociology, Bryn Mawr College, 1892-93; Graduate Student in Political Science, Yale University, 1893-95, and University Scholar, 1894-95; Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 1898-1900.
Source: Program Bryn Mawr College 1900-01, p. 89.
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Partial List of publications (with links)
Kate Holladay Claghorn. College Training for Women. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1897.
___________. “Occupation for the [woman] college graduate,” (Association of Collegiate Alumnae. Publications, series 3, no. 3 (February, 1900), pp. 62-66. 1900).
___________. “The problem of occupation for college women,” Educational Review, Vol. XV (March, 1898), pp. 217-230.
Appears to be same publication as (Association of Collegiate Alumnae, Publications Series 2, no. 66).
Final Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX (1902).
___________. “Slavs, Magyars and Some Others in the New Immigration”. Charities Vol. Xiii, No. 10 (Dec. 3, 1904), pp. 199-205.
___________. “The Limitations of Statistics,” Review of William H. Allen Efficient Democracy. In Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, New Series, No. 81 (Vol. XI) March, 1908. Pages 97-104.
___________. “The Use and Misuse of Statistics in Social Work.” In Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, New Series, No. 82 (Vol. XI) June, 1908. Pages 150-167.
___________. “Record Keeping as an Aid to Enforcement” in Housing and Town Planning, Carol Aronovici, ed. Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science (1914), pp.117-124.
___________. Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York. U. S. Department of Labor. Children’s Bureau, no. 32, 1918.
___________. The Immigrant’s Day in Court. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923.
___________. Statistical Department of the Municipal Court of Philadelphia. A Report by the Bureau of Municipal Research of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Thomas Skelton Harrison Foundation, 1931.
Further publications can be found in the longer bibliography provided in the Bibliography of Female Economic Thought, Kirsten K. Madden, Janet A. Seiz and Michèle Pujol, editors. London: Routledge, 2004, pp. 107-108.
Image Source: Frank Parker Stockbridge. “A Woman Who Spends Over Forty Million Dollars Each Year and Some Others Who Hold Positions of Financial Power and Moral Responsibility in the Government of New York City.” The American City, vol. 6. No. 6 (June, 1912), pp 814-. [photo of Kate Holladay Claghorn on page 816].