Shouse, Catherine Filene, 1896-1994

Catherine Filene Shouse (June 9, 1896 – December 14, 1994) was an American researcher and philanthropist. She graduated in 1918 from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.[1] She worked for the Women's Division of the U.S. Employment Service of the Department of Labor, and was the first woman appointed to the Democratic National Committee in 1925. She was also the editor of the Woman's National Democratic Committee's Bulletin (1929–32), and the first woman to chair the Federal Prison for Women Board.

Finally, she was a strong supporter of the arts and served as chair of the President's Music Committee's Person-to-Person Program (1957–1963). In 1966 she donated her personal property, Wolf Trap Farm, to the National Park Service. This farm would go on to become Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, where Shouse would serve as founder until her death in 1994. her grandfather William Filene founded Filene's department store, and her mother started the Boston Music School for Underprivileged Children. 1917, Shouse was able to utilize experience acquired through her undergraduate and her prior activist activities. She was employed by the Women's Division of the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor. Shouse was hired as the assistant to the chief Three years later (1929), Shouse created the Institute of Women's Professional Relations. In 1925, Shouse was the first woman to be appointed to the Democratic National Committee. Four years later, she served as editor of the Women's National Democratic Committee's Bulletin from 1929 to 1932. President Calvin Coolidge appointed Shouse chair of the Federal Prison for Women in 1926. As the founder of Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Shouse helped lead its development into one of the most prominent performing arts venues in the Washington D.C. area from the beginning. During the construction of the Filene Center—named after Shouse's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Filene[9]—in 1971, Shouse even visited and assisted workers on site, even offering sandwiches and other refreshments when possible. at the request of President Herbert Hoover, Shouse organized the Washington Hungarian Relief Fund and raised a half-million dollars in less than a month (1956).[15] Shouse was appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to chair the President's Music Committee from 1957 to 1963.

President Eisenhower also appointed Shouse to the first board of trustees of the National Cultural Center (1958). President Kennedy reappointed Shouse to that position in 1962. In 1964, the National Cultural Center was renamed The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts following the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. President Richard Nixon appointed Shouse to the board of trustees of the renamed Kennedy Center for a ten-year term in 1970.[15] During that time, Shouse also served on the Executive and Building Committees of the Kennedy Center. Shouse was appointed to the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Commission in 1973 by President Nixon. She was appointed to the official commissions on women's rights by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and John Kennedy. Last but not least, in 1975 President Gerald Ford appointed Shouse to the Commission on Presidential Scholars.

In addition to her presidential appointments, Shouse was appointed to the first Virginia Commission of the Arts and Humanities in 1968, by Governor Mills E. Godwin Jr. In 1971, Shouse was reappointed to that position by Governor Linwood Holton.

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. Shouse's paternal grandparents were from Germany: William Filene was born in Posen and Clara (Ballin) Filene in Hanover. William Filene was the founder of Filene's Specialty Store. He and Clara Filene had two sons, A. Lincoln and Edward Albert. 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 1941, Joan married David Atholl Robertson and had four children: David A., Jr., John Jouett, Jill, and Jenifer. The Robertsons were divorced in 1959 and in 1978 Joan married Benton C. Tolley, Jr.

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.

Shouse received numerous awards. In 1949 she was honored with the City of Paris Award and the Vienna Medal of Honor. In 1954 she received the United States Army's Patriotic Civilian Award and became the first woman to be decorated with the German Federal Republic's Commander Cross of Merit. Queen Elizabeth II named her Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1976, and in 1977 President Ford gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was one of twelve to receive the National Medal of Arts and the ISPAA Angel Award in 1994. Jouett Shouse died in 1968 and Shouse died on December 14, 1994. A partial chronology of supplemental information follows.


1928: Attended University of Colorado, Boulder.
1928: Enrolled in aviation school, Hoover Field, Virginia.
1935: Member, Board of Directors, Community Chest, Washington.
1930-1945: Bred and trained hunters, hunted with Fairfax Hounds.
1945: Hosted British delegation to Dumbarton Oaks Conference, Washington.
1947-: Trustee, Filene Foundation (Boston).
1948: Visited German youth groups to observe use of seeds sent by 4H Clubs.
1949-: Elected to Board of National Symphony Orchestra Association; vice president, 1951-1968; honorary vice president, 1968-
1952-: Sponsored two annual National Symphony Orchestra concerts for handicapped and Fairfax County (Virginia) children.
1952-1963: Board, National Arbitration Association.
1955-: Board, Lincoln Filene Center of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Tufts University.
1958-1980: Appointed by President Eisenhower to first Board of Trustees of National Cultural Center. Reappointed by Kennedy in 1962, and in 1970 by Nixon for 10-year term. (Name changed to John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.) Honorary trustee, 1980.
1962: Represented President's Music Committee's People-to-People Program at UNESCO's music conference in Paris.
1964: Organization Committee for formation of Fairfax County Cultural Association.
1965-1972: Board, Opera Society of Washington.
1968: Appointed by Governor Godwin to first Virginia Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Reappointed (1971) by Governor Linwood Holton. Co-chairman, Executive Committee with Gerald T. Halpin (1975).
1968-: Board, Wolf Trap Foundation. Chairman, Executive Committee, 1975.
1973: Appointed by President Nixon to Pennsylvania Avenue Development Commission.
1975: Appointed to Board of Overseers, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College; chair, 1981.
1976: Appointed by President Ford to Commission on Presidential Scholars.
1980: Donated two houses, garage, swimming pool, 53 acres of land to Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts.
1981: Renovated two early 18th-century barns, donated them to Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts for performing arts facility.
1982: Honorary chairman, Committee for the Arts, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College.
1983-: Honorary director, Washington Chamber Orchestra.
1984-: Advisory Board, Washington Conservatory.
1985: First honorary member, Washington College Friends of the Arts Committee.
1988: Wheaton College established Filene Center for Work and Learning in her honor.
1991: Served on Harvard Overseers' Committee on University Resources.
1991: Served on Board of Directors of Yale University School of Music.
1993: Dedication of Shouse Career Center at Hood College, Frederick, Maryland.