Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Wurster, Catherine Bauer, 1905-1964
- Abstract:
- The Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection primarily contains black and white photographs related to Wurster's work with public housing and planning. A large portion are images of housing projects undertaken in the United States by the Federal Housing Authority, Farm Security Administration, United States Housing Authority, Tennessee Valley Authority, and defense housing by the Public Housing Administration. Other images include public and private housing, public buildings, and housing cooperatives in Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.S.S.R. Also includes a photographic survey of housing in San Francisco (San Francisco Real Property Survey) from 1940; images of various buildings in American cities and some images of Pueblo housing in New Mexico; images of Catherine Bauer Wurster; photographs from William Wilson Wurster's sabbatical tour in Japan; and images from the Museum of Modern Art's Architecture Exhibition in 1932. Predominantly exterior views, some aerial. Also included are photographic copies of architectural drawings and plans as well as postcards.
- Extent:
- 1.45 Linear Feet 1 carton, 1 slim document box
- Language:
- English and Collection materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection, BANC PIC 1974.029, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection primarily contains black and white photographs related to Wurster's work with public housing and planning. A large portion are images of housing projects undertaken in the United States by the Federal Housing Authority, Farm Security Administration, United States Housing Authority, Tennessee Valley Authority, and defense housing by the Public Housing Administration. Other images include public and private housing, public buildings, and housing cooperatives in Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.S.S.R. Also includes a photographic survey of housing in San Francisco (San Francisco Real Property Survey) from 1940; images of various buildings in American cities and some images of Pueblo housing in New Mexico; images of Catherine Bauer Wurster; photographs from William Wilson Wurster's sabbatical tour in Japan; and images from the Museum of Modern Art's Architecture Exhibition in 1932. Predominantly exterior views, some aerial. Also included are photographic copies of architectural drawings and plans as well as postcards.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Considered one of the founders of American housing policy, Catherine Krouse Bauer Wurster (CBW) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1905. Her parents were Jacob Louis Bauer, a transportation engineer and Alberta Krouse. 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. For the next decade in the company of Mary Simkovitch, Lewis Mumford, Clarence Stein, and many others engaged in the study of housing and city planning, she found that concern for the underprivileged, interest in the relationship between man and his environment, and a fervor for reform in public policy was to guide her active and influential life.
During these years she served as executive secretary of the Regional Planning Association of America, of the Labor Housing Conference, and of the Housing Committee of the American Federation of Labor, and wrote her now classic 1934 book Modern Housing. Its synthesis of social, economic, political, technological and architectural insights, established her as an authority in housing and a leader in New Deal housing policy. 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 the first Director of Research and Information for the new United States Housing Authority and as adviser to numerous other federal and local agencies.
In January, 1940, she came to the University of California at Berkeley as Rosenberg Lecturer in the School of Social Work and in August of that year married William Wilson Wurster, a prominent San Francisco architect. When they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1944, C.B. Wurster became a lecturer in the Department of Regional Planning at Harvard University. She also became Vice President of the National (Public) Housing Conference, and continued to serve as a board member or officer of the National Committee on Housing, the Committee on the Hygiene of Housing of the American Public Health Association, the Boston and Massachusetts Housing Associations, and the International Federation of Housing and Town Planning. During these years, she presided over a joint committee that drafted “A Housing Program for Now and Later” for the National Association of Housing Officials and the National (Public) Housing Conference, a significant document in the long campaign for the adoption of the Housing Act of 1949.
In 1950 the Wurster’s returned to the west coast when William Wurster became Dean of the School of Architecture at The University of California, Berkeley. Catherine became a lecturer and later professor, in the Department of City and Regional Planning, a position she held until her death. During these years, she was consultant to the United Nations, travelled, wrote, and advised on housing problems in India and other developing countries, consulted on projects related to California’s Central Valley and Washington’s Columbia River Basin, and served as adviser to the U. S. Public Health Service, the U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency, and the U.S. Census Bureau. She also served in various capacities in the American Planning and Civic Association, the Democratic Advisory Council, and was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Planners. In 1960 when President Eisenhower appointed a Commission on National Goals, she was invited to prepare the section on the urban environment, which appears in Goals for Americans. In 1963 she organized a major conference on “The Metropolitan Future” as a part of the U.C.’s series on California and the Challenge of Growth. When she died in 1964, she was editing the papers of this conference, contributing to the California Governor's Advisory Commission on Housing Problems, and serving as Associate Dean of U.C. Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.
Catherine Bauer (she used her maiden name for professional purposes) was a prolific writer and popular lecturer. “She accepted honors with modesty and would turn quickly and cheerfully to her private business--discovering the facts, asking about the policy, and urging action--always action which is the test of policy.” She commanded the respect and admiration of architects, planners, sociologists, and economists for her ability to think sharply, clearly, and incisively, and for a far-reaching knowledge in a wide range of fields.
Source: Finding aid to the Catherine Bauer Wurster papers, BANC MSS 74/163c,The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
- Acquisition information:
- Transferred from the Catherine Bauer Wurster papers (BANC MSS 74/163 c).
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Waverly Lowell and Lisa Monhoff in 2017. Description and finding aid for photograph collection created by Lori Dedeyan in 2017.
- Arrangement:
-
Arranged to the folder level.
- Accruals:
-
No additions are expected.
- Physical location:
- Many of the Bancroft collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
Materials in this collection may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/rights-and-permissions
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection, BANC PIC 1974.029, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
- Location of this collection:
-
University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft LibraryBerkeley, CA 94720-6000, US
- Contact:
- 510-642-6481