Natalie Walker Linderholm, 1892-1987

Natalie Walker was born in Philadelphia in 1892 and attended Girl's Latin School in Boston. She attended Radcliffe 1910-1914, graduating magna cum laude in political science. While at Radcliffe she was a member of the English and Ideler Clubs and served as Vice President of the Guild (1912-1913), Class Secretary (1911-1912) and first Editor-in-Chief of Fortnightly . She was also class historian and was elected a charter member of the Radcliffe chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Also at Radcliffe she began her career in social work, performing volunteer service in the North End. Upon graduation she went to the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, where she was the recipient of a fellowship. She received her certificate in 1915, having written a report on housing conditions in the area around Hull House. She stayed on at the Chicago School for another two years serving as research assistant and secretary to the Dean. In 1917 she served as an inspector in North Carolina under the new child labor law until the law was declared unconstitutional. In 1918 she married Ernest Linderholm and moved to Vermont, where she studied infant mortality in Burlington and became a member of the original board of the Vermont Children's Aid Society. Moving to Boston in 1921, she worked for the Family Service Association of Boston, serving as editor of Family Welfare . Continuing her career in New York, she worked for the Russell Sage Foundation (1937-1939), the Greater New York Fund (1939-1958), the New York City Commission for the Foster Care of Children (1958-1961), the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies of New York City (1961-1975), and Woodycrest-Five Points Child Care (1973-1977) as well as other agencies. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Keystone Award of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (1971) and in 1979 the Radcliffe College Alumnae Recognition Award. For further details, see folder 3.

From the guide to the Papers, 1910-1979, (Radcliffe College Archives, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)

Natalie (Walker) Linderholm, social worker and social work publicist, attended Girls' Latin School in Boston, 1906-1910, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe College in 1914. She then studied at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (now School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago), earning a certificate (equivalent to a graduate degree) in 1915; she served as research assistant (1915-1916) and secretary to the dean (1917). That year she left Chicago for a tour of the North Carolina mountains as an inspector under the first federal child labor law; the tour ended when the law was declared unconstitutional.

NWL married Ernest Linderholm, a lawyer and businessman, in Burlington, Vermont; their daughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1918. He died in 1955. From 1919 to 1921, NWL did volunteer work in Vermont; in 1921, she established the Vermont Children's Aid Society, a professionally-staffed agency for foster care and adoption of neglected, homeless children, and conducted a research project on the high rate of infant mortality in Burlington. Also in 1921, the family moved to Boston and NWL combined volunteer service with homemaking. In 1930 she returned to professional social work as a case worker for the Family Welfare Society and editor of its pamphlet series, Family Welfare . She organized the public relations department of the Boston Community Fund and was publicity consultant to the Nursery Training School of Boston, of which her Radcliffe classmate, Abigail Eliot, was director.

In 1936 the family moved to New York and NWL spent a year and a half doing research in publicity methods at the Russell Sage Foundation. She soon joined the Greater New York Fund, where she was assistant director, then director, of public relations, and later a consultant (1938-1958). On her retirement she was drafted to be secretary to the New York Commission for Foster Care of Children (1958-1961); she then became special consultant to the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies of New York City and concurrently served as executive secretary to the Career Center for Social Service of Greater New York, Inc. The center closed in 1974 and she retired from the Protestant Welfare Agencies in 1975, but served as consultant in fund-raising and public relations for the Woodycrest Five Points Child Care Unit until 1977.

From the guide to the Papers, 1900-1984, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)