Kate Asaphine Everest Levi (January 4, 1859 – October 19, 1938) was an American educator, writer, and social worker. She was the first director of Kingsley House in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a settlement house, and the first woman Ph.D. recipient from the University of Wisconsin.[1] Although both Syracuse University (1880, 1884) and the College of Wooster (1889) had granted doctorates in history to women in the 1880s,[2] Everest Levi is considered the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in history from an organized graduate school in the United States.[3] She wrote on topics such as education and German immigration to the Midwest.[4][5]

Kate Everest Levi

Kate Everest was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin,[1] to parents Asaph and Mary (Abercrombie) Everest. After attending Fond du Lac High School, she entered the University of Wisconsin in 1879, earning a BA in 1882. After graduation, she taught at Markham's Academy, Milwaukee from 1882 to 1883; at La Crosse High School from 1883 to 1884; and was teacher of history and languages at Lawrence University from 1884 to 1890. She then earned an MA in 1892 and a PhD in 1893 from the University of Wisconsin.[6]

She worked with Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago[7] before moving to Pittsburgh, where she was appointed head of Kingsley House social settlement from 1896.[1] She published several articles and books on history and education. Her papers are held at the Wisconsin Historical Society.[8]

She married Ernest Reese Levi on April 21, 1896, and had two children.[4]

She died October 19, 1938, in Madison, Wisconsin, at the age of 79.[1][5]

Selected works

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Former Preceptress at Lawrence Is Dead". The Post-Crescent. October 19, 1938. p. 25. Retrieved September 24, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.  
  2. ^ Walter Crosby Eells, "Earned Doctorates for Women in the Nineteenth Century," AAUP Bulletin 42 (Winter 1956): 644-651, accessed 13 Oct. 2016 via JSTOR.
  3. ^ William B. Hesseltine and Louis Kaplan, "Women Doctors of Philosophy in History," Journal of Higher Education 14 (May 1943): 254, accessed 3 Oct. 2016 via JSTOR.
  4. ^ a b John W. Leonard (1914). Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. American commonwealth Company. p. 487.
  5. ^ a b "Mrs. Kate Levi, Social Worker, Dies in Madison". The Pittsburgh Press. 20 October 1938. p. 30.
  6. ^ Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. (1900). The University of Wisconsin: Its History and Its Alumni, with Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Madison. J. N. Purcell. p. 729.
  7. ^ "Mrs. K. Levi, Educator, Dies at 79", Wisconsin State Journal, October 19, 1938, p. 5.
  8. ^ Levi, Kate Asaphine (Everest). "Papers, 1833-1850, 1891-1893"
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