Lenroot, Katharine F. (Katharine Frederica), 1891-1982

Katharine F. Lenroot, child welfare leader and the third Chief of the United States Children's Bureau (1934-1951) was born in Superior, Wisconsin on March 8, 1891 to Irvin Luther and Clara C. Lenroot. From early on, her father's political career made Lenroot aware of social and political issues. Admitted to the bar in 1898, Irvine was elected to the Wisconsin state legislature in 1901. After his service in Wisconsin until 1907, he was elected to the national House of Representatives from 1909 to 1918, and to the Senate from 1918 to 1927. During her father's terms in the state legislature, Katharine frequently stayed in Madison, and after graduating from Superior State Normal School in 1909 she deferred entering college for a year to join him in Washington, D.C.

Affected by her father's engagement in the regulation of Wisconsin railroads, Lenroot majored in economics and minored in sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. There, she was most influenced by the economist John R. Commons, who often required his students to conduct research for new legislation. Lenroot prepared a brief and testified before the legislative committee of Wisconsin to support minimum wage legislation, which did not exist in the United States at the time. With continued interest in minimum wage legislation, Lenroot decided to take the civil service examination, and upon completion of her B.A. in 1912, she began her professional career in 1913 as a deputy of the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin, of which Commons was a member. Lenroot, hired as an assistant to Emma O. Lundberg, with whom she would work closely in the following years, surveyed living costs in relation to the state's new minimum wage law.

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