Dr. Kate Waller Barrett
Humanitarian, Philanthropist, Social Activist
Kate Waller Barrett was a truly remarkable woman. A humanitarian, philanthropist, sociologist and social reformer, she crusaded tirelessly – and successfully – for assistance for the “outcast woman, the mistreated prisoner, those lacking in educational and social opportunity, the voteless woman, and the disabled war veteran”. Kate Waller Barrett made a difference.
She was born in 1857 to a well-to-do family at Widewater in Stafford County, Virginia and married Robert South Barrett, an Episcopal minister, in 1876. Assisting him with his work in Richmond, Virginia, Kentucky, and Atlanta, Georgia, she first became aware of the social problems that became her life’s work. With the support of her husband, she earned a medical degree in 1892 from the Women’s Medical College of Georgia, followed in 1894 by an honorary Doctor of Science degree. She also studied nursing at the Florence Nightingale Training School in London, England.
Widowed at 39 in 1896, she assumed sole responsibility for raising her six children and began her professional career. Dr. Barrett’s central professional interest was the plight of unmarried mothers in the late 19th and early 20th century. She was interested in rescuing helpless girls and women and “fallen women” – almost always an uphill battle against the prejudices of her time. After limited initial success in Atlanta founding “rescue homes” in the face of official opposition, in 1893 she joined forces with Charles N. Crittenton, a wealthy New Yorker also interested in rescue work, to found the first Florence Crittenton Home for unmarried mothers. After she was widowed, she became the General Superintendent of the newly-formed National Florence Crittenton Mission and became its President in 1909, keeping both positions until her death in 1925. The Mission eventually ran more than 50 homes around the country.
