Cora Olive Sutton Castle (May 10, 1880 – August 14, 1966) was an American educator, sociologist, author, and

clubwoman The woman's club movement was a social movement that took place throughout the United States that established the idea that women had a moral duty and responsibility to transform public policy. While women's organizations had always been a part ...

based in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

Early life and education

Cora Olive Sutton was born in

Prior Lake, Minnesota Prior Lake is an exurban city southwest of Minneapolis seated next to Savage and Shakopee in Scott County in the state of Minnesota. Surrounding the shores of Lower and Upper Prior Lake, the city lies south of the Minnesota River in an area kn ...

, the daughter of Andrew Stewart Sutton and Harriet Snow Sutton. She earned a bachelor's degree at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 1905, and a master's degree in literature at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

.Laura Ball
"Cora Sutton Castle"
''Psychology's Feminist Voices'' profile (2010).

''A Statistical Study of Eminent Women'' and other work

Cora Sutton Castle earned her doctorate in the psychology department at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1913, with a dissertation titled ''A Statistical Study of Eminent Women'',Cora Sutton Castle
''A Statistical Study of Eminent Women''
(Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1913). the title a direct reference to her advisor

James McKeen Cattell James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

's paper, "A Statistical Study of Eminent Men" (1903). In her version of the study, she asked, "Has innate inferiority been the reason for the small number of eminent women, or has civilization never yet allowed them an opportunity to develop their innate powers and possibilities?" Her dissertation was published as a book the next year, and is still read and cited as an early example of collective biography of women. Castle served as president of the San Francisco City Federation of Women's Clubs from 1918 to 1920, and in that role helped establish the "New Outside Inn," to host visiting family members of servicemen being treated at the

Letterman Army Hospital The Letterman Army Hospital, established around 1898 and redesignated as the Letterman Army Medical Center (LAMC) in 1969, was a US Army facility at the Presidio of San Francisco in San Francisco, California, US. It was decommissioned in 1994. ...

. Castle survived a fatal shipwreck in China in 1926, while traveling."S. F. Writer Rescued in Ship Wreck"
''Oakland Tribune'' (December 13, 1926): 3. via

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

Personal life

Cora Sutton married Harry Edward Castle, a surgeon, in 1910. They lived in the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco for many years, while he served as the hotel doctor. Cora Sutton Castle was widowed in 1949 and died from cancer in 1966, aged 86 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castle, Cora Sutton 1880 births 1966 deaths American women psychologists 20th-century American psychologists American women in World War I Academics from San Francisco People from Scott County, Minnesota Clubwomen 20th-century American academics