Papers of Catharine Wright Menninger

Abstract:

Catharine Menninger's papers provide an excellent overview regarding her travels, both personally and for People to People, starting with early trips around the United States and her 1925 trip to study at the Sorbonne in France. Also well represented in her papers are her interests in civil defense during World War II and in the American Red Cross.

Cay's family, including her parents and siblings, husband and children, and grandchildren, provide a bulk of the focus of her collection. Materials related to her family consist of newspaper clippings and letters, as well as some genealogical information and family materials dating back to the mid-19th century. Cay's diaries provide some information about Cay's thoughts and experiences, particularly from early in her life. There is not a great deal from Cay's work with the Menninger Foundation, but there are notebooks and other materials regarding her teaching, writings and talks she gave, and her other positions and quasi-professional activities.

Much of the material in Mrs. Menninger's papers on any given topic can be found scattered across multiple series, based in part upon format and purpose of the documents--items related to People to People may be found in Interests, Scrapbooks, and Manuscripts and Speeches, for example. Broader searches may therefore be necessary to find all materials related to a specific topic.

Biog. Sketch (Full):

Catharine Louisa Wright was born 22 September 1902 in Beaver, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Roy V. and Eliza G. Bratton Wright, along with two other daughters, Dorothy Elizabeth and JoAnne. Soon after Catharine's birth the family moved to East Orange, New Jersey, where she grew up.

Catharine, or Cay, graduated from Columbia University in New York in 1927 with a graduate degree in religious education, after spending a semester at the Sorbonne of Paris, France, and after receiving her Bachelors of Science in Nutrition from Columbia. Cay also received dietetic training from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

On 11 December 1925 Cay and William C. Menninger married, and they had three sons: Roy Wright, Philip Bratton, and William Walter. All three sons worked with the Menninger Foundation, both Drs. Roy and Walt serving as president from 1967 through 2001.

Cay became active in the local community when she moved to Topeka after her marriage. She helped organize the first nursery school in Topeka in the late 1920s; taught courses in child development and marriage at Washburn University, as well as in home economics courses, during the 1930s and 1940s; and engaged in such organizations as the Parent Teachers Association and the League of Women Voters. During World War II, Cay was highly active in the American Women's Voluntary Services and in civil defense work.

When first married, she and Dr. Will discussed traveling to China as Christian missionaries. While the couple moved to Topeka instead to help Dr. Will's father and older brother Karl in running the Menninger Clinic and Sanatorium, Cay Menninger continued to enjoy travel. When Dr. Will began extensive fund raising trips across the United States and elsewhere after the end of World War II, Cay accompanied him, and she became a staff member of the foundation's Development Services Office, or DSO, as membership secretary.

After her husband died in 1966, Cay Menninger worked with numerous non-profit institutions, notably People to People International, a program begun ten years previously in 1956 by U.S. President Eisenhower to facilitate personal diplomacy and nongovernmental contacts between peoples of the world. She held a number of leadership positions in this institution, including serving as its President. She also held a number of leadership positions in the American Red Cross's local and regional chapters for the Kansas City area, and was president of the Shawnee County Historical Society.

Catharine Wright Menninger died 6 September 1994.