Shouse, Catherine Filene, 1896-1994

Philanthropist and patron of the arts, Catherine (Filene) Shouse was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 9, 1896, the daughter of A. Lincoln and Thérèse (Weill) Filene, a founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. William Filene, her grandfather, was the founder of Filene's Specialty Store. Thérèse Filene founded the Boston Music Settlement in Boston's North End and helped found Boston's War Camp Community Service Entertainment Bureau, a forerunner of the United Service Organizations in the Boston area, during World War I. Shouse was one of two children. Her sister Helen, born ca.1899, married George E. Ladd, Jr., and had three children: George III, Lincoln F., and Robert M.

Shouse, known to her friends as Kay, grew up in Boston and Weston, Massachusetts, where her family had a country house. She attended Bradford Academy (now Bradford College) for two years (1911-1913), and spent one year at Vassar College (1913-1914). She then transferred to Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts (B.A. 1918), and while there organized conferences on career opportunities for women. In 1917, she was hired as assistant to the chief of the Women's Division of the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C.

In 1919, Shouse returned to Boston and enrolled at Radcliffe College as a graduate student. When the Harvard Graduate School of Education (which her father helped establish) opened in 1920, she transferred and was the first woman to earn a degree (M.A. 1923) there. Houghton Mifflin commissioned her to expand her thesis and edit, Careers for Women, in 1920; a revised edition was published in 1934.

In 1921, Catherine Filene married Alvin E. Dodd, an economist with the Chamber of Commerce; they had one daughter, Joan. In the 1920s, the Dodds lived in Washington, D.C., where Alvin Dodd established the United States Chamber of Commerce. Active in politics during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Shouse was the first woman appointed to the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee, a founder of the Woman's National Democratic Club (1925), and editor of the Woman's National Democratic Club's Bulletin (1929-1932). In 1926, under President Coolidge, she served as first chairman of the board of the Institute for Women Federal Prisoners, where, continuing her interest in opportunities for women, she instituted a job training and rehabilitation program. In 1929, Shouse founded the Institute of Women's Professional Relations (IWPR), which organized national conferences on opportunities for women with more than a high school education. (Institute of Women's Professional Relations was originally located at the campus of North Carolina University and later moved to Connecticut College.)

After Dodd's term at the United States Chamber of Commerce, he relocated to New York in about 1929 while Shouse remained in Washington. Shouse divorced Dodd in 1930 and two years later married Jouett Shouse (born 1879), whom she had met through her political work. A lawyer and businessman who had been a congressman from Kansas and assistant secretary of the Treasury under President Coolidge, Jouett Shouse was serving as chair of the Democratic National Executive Committee. While living in Washington, Jouett and Catherine Shouse took in and raised a boy whom they renamed William Filene Shouse. Shouse terminated her political career and became active in civic and cultural affairs in the Washington area. She was the first to organize and sponsor concerts (Candlelight concerts, 1935-1942) to supplement the salaries of musicians in the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO). These were first held at her Washington home; then when attendance became too large the concerts were moved to the Phillips Gallery.

In the late 1930s, while at a spa in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia, the Shouses became interested in Boxer dogs. They bought a female during their travels and had such success showing her in the United States that they started a kennel, raising champions in three different breeds on their farm at Wolf Trap in northern Virginia (1939-1946). During the 1940s, Shouse became a president of the Potomac Boxer Club (PBC) and publicity chair of the Old Dominion Kennel Club (ODKC). The Potomac Boxer Club's annual specialty shows, begun ca.1941, raised money for various civic organizations. In addition, Shouse judged boxers in shows around the country.

She became well known for her successful efforts in raising funds for charity, beginning in 1928 as a volunteer at the National Symphony Orchestra and in the 1940s with carnivals for the Institute of Women's Professional Relations. She worked extensively with the Community War Fund in 1942. Jouett and Catherine Shouse became interested in the General Clay Fund, which supported the Army's German Youth Activities Program (GYA), while traveling in Germany. Shouse lent her considerable expertise to the enterprise (1949-1952). At the request of former President Herbert Hoover, she ran the Hungarian Relief Fund (1956-1957), and raised $500,000 within a month.

Having been exposed to music early in life, Shouse maintained a lively interest in the performing arts. She took many trips to Europe for musical events and festivals, often in the company of Princess Helen Kotchoubey de Beauharnais. In 1957, she was appointed chair of the President's Music Committee's People-to-People Program (PMC) by President Eisenhower; she served until 1963. Through this organization she produced annual calendars of performing arts events, and organized President's Music Committee's People-to-People Program's first International Jazz Festival (1962).

In 1961, Shouse donated 40 acres of her farm at Wolf Trap to the American Symphony Orchestra League (ASOL). In 1966, she donated 100 acres to the United States government for a performing arts park to be run by the Department of the Interior under the National Park Service (Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts, WTFP) and funded the building of an open-air amphitheater called the Filene Center. This was accepted by an Act of Congress in October 1966. (American Symphony Orchestra League also transferred its 40 acres to the government for the park.) She established the Wolf Trap Foundation to manage the park, arrange programming, and raise funds. The ground-breaking ceremony for the Filene Center took place in 1968, the topping-out ceremony in 1970, and the gala opening on July 1, 1971. In 1982, the center burned to the ground; a new amphitheater opened in 1984.

Shouse owned the following houses: 1916 F Street, Washington, D.C.; "Plantation House," Vienna, Virginia; "Granly," Oaklands, Easton, Maryland; and 110 Fourth Ave. No., Naples, Florida. She was a member of the American News Women's Club, 1925 F Street Club, Kollegewidwok Yacht Club, and Naples Yacht Club.