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Catherine Bauer Wurster Papers, 1931-1964
BANC MSS 74/163 c
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Table of contents
Collection Title: Catherine Bauer Wurster Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1931-1964
Collection Number: BANC MSS 74/163 c
Extent:
Number of containers: 45 boxes, 45 cartons and 2 oversize folders.
Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Creator:
Wurster, Catherine Bauer
Repository: The
Bancroft Library
Berkeley, California 94720-6000
Abstract: Misc. biographical materials.
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft
Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which
must also be obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Catherine Bauer Wurster Papers, BANC MSS 74/163 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley.
Catherine Krouse (Bauer) Wurster was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1905. She attended Vail-Deane School and then Vassar
College. In her junior year she transferred to the School of Architecture at Cornell University, but returned to Vassar to
graduate in 1926. The next few years were devoted to research and writing about housing and city planning and travel abroad
to study European housing. Her book,
Modern Housing, was published in 1934. In 1936 she won the first Guggenheim Foundation award made in architecture or housing. She participated
in the preparation, promotion and passage of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 and served as first director of the U.S. Housing
Authority which was created by that Act. In January, 1940, she came to the University of California at Berkeley as Rosenberg
Lecturer in Public Social Services and in August of that year was married to William Wilson Wurster, a prominent San Francisco
architect. When they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1944, Mrs. Wurster became a lecturer in the Department of Regional
Planning at Harvard University. In 1950 they returned to Berkeley where she was on the faculty of the University of California
Department of City and Regional Planning until her death in 1964.
Mrs. Wurster (she used her maiden name for professional purposes) was a prolific writer and a capable and popular lecturer.
She was active in many housing and planning organizations and served as advisor to numerous state and federal agencies. At
the time of her death she was a member of President Johnson's task force on metropolitan and urban problems.
Her papers were given to the College of Environmental Design by her husband after her death and transferred to The Bancroft
Library in 1974. Consisting of correspondence (both letters written to and by her); MSS, reprints and tear sheets of her articles,
speeches and other writings; notes; extensive subject files on housing and city planning; files relating to her teaching career
at Berkeley; bibliographical material; a few diaries and notebooks; personalia; clippings; etc., they relate to all phases
of her career in the fields of housing and city planning. Photographs have been removed to the Library's Pictorial Collections
for separate indexing.
The Key to Arrangement which follows describes the collection in greater detail.