Coman, Katharine (1857–1915)
Coman, Katharine (1857–1915)
American economic historian. Born Nov 23, 1857, in Newark, Ohio; died Jan 11, 1915, Wellesley, Massachusetts; dau. of Martha (Seymour) Coman and Levi Parsons Coman (lawyer and abolitionist); University of Michigan, PhB, 1880; lived with Katharine Lee Bates (professor and poet).
At Wellesley College, became professor of political economy and history (1883), then professor of economics and sociology (1900); with Cornelia Warren, organized club for young working girls (Boston, 1890); supported movement to organize College Settlements Association; served as chair of Boston Settlement Committee which opened Denison House in South End; served as president of electoral board and chair of standing committee of national College Settlements Association (1900–07) and as chair of committee on grievances of Women's Trade Union League of Chicago; traveled in Europe to study social insurance programs and published results in Survey magazine (and posthumously as Unemployment Insurance: A Summary of European Systems [1915]); wrote with Elizabeth Kendall, The Growth of the English Nation (1894) and A History of England for High Schools and Academies (1899); also wrote The Industrial History of the United States (textbook, 1905) and Economic Beginnings of the Far West (2 vols., 1912).