Katharine Coman - Infinite Women

Born: 23 November 1857, United States
Died: 11 January 1915
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA

The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.

Katharine Ellis Coman was an influential American social activist and educator. Coman dedicated her career to Wellesley College, a women-only institution in Massachusetts, where she developed pioneering courses in political economy to promote social change. As Dean, she played a crucial role in establishing a department of economics and sociology.
Coman’s significant contributions include her works such as “The Industrial History of the United States” and “Economic Beginnings of the Far West: How We Conquered the Land Beyond the Mississippi.” She was the first female statistics professor in the United States and the only female co-founder of the American Economics Association. She authored the first paper published in The American Economic Review.
Committed to trade unionism, social insurance, and the settlement movement, Coman conducted extensive research through her travels and led students on enlightening field trips to factories and tenements. She shared her home with the renowned poet Katharine Lee Bates.
Coman was devoted to addressing social and economic issues, especially women’s education, poverty, immigration, and labor. She actively engaged in social reform, including the labor and settlement movements. In 1900, she led the National College Settlements Association.
She organized immigrant women in Boston sweatshops, forming the “Evening Club for Tailoresses,” and attempted to establish an alternative tailor shop. Coman played a vital role in the 1910 Chicago garment workers’ strike involving 40,000 workers and collaborated with the Women’s Trade Union League.
With economist and sociologist Emily Greene Balch, she co-founded Denison House in 1892, a pioneering college women’s settlement house in Boston. It became a hub for labor activists on the East Coast.