Katharine Coman
American economist
Died when: 57 years 49 days (685 months)Star Sign: Sagittarius
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Katharine Ellis Coman (23 November 1857 – 11 January 1915) was an American social activist and professor.She was based at the women-only Wellesley College, Massachusetts, where she created new courses in political economy, in line with her personal belief in social change.
As dean, she established a new department of economics and sociology.Among other admired works, Coman wrote The Industrial History of the United States and Economic Beginnings of the Far West: How We Won the Land Beyond the Mississippi.
She was the first female statistics professor in the US, the only woman co-founder of the American Economics Association, and author of the first paper published in The American Economic Review.
A believer in trades unionism, social insurance and the settlement movement, Coman travelled widely to conduct her research, and took her students on field trips to factories and tenements.
She shared a home with poet Katharine Lee Bates.