Early Days
Born in 1875 to an aristocratic family in Dexter, Michigan, Katharine Moore Dexter led a privileged life with access to a far better education than most women of her generation. With the encouragement of her parents, Katharine developed a love of learning that drove the rest of her life. From a young age, Katharine was frequently photographed posing with a book in her hands, showing her family's pride in her intelligence. Her father, Wirt, was a real estate developer and lawyer who served as president of the Chicago Bar Association. Her mother was a Massachusetts-raised socialite and supporter of the movement for women’s suffrage.
Katharine was intent on becoming a scientist, rejecting the traditional roles of women at the time. Her early interest in science and medicine may be linked to personal experiences - at age 14, her father died suddenly from a heart attack. Following the death of her father in 1890, Katharine, her mother, and her brother Samuel moved to a house in Boston’s Back Bay. Samuel attended Harvard before succumbing to meningitis in 1894.
In Boston, Katharine attended a girls’ finishing school led by Heloise Hershey, a Vassar-educated woman who had been a professor at Smith College before opening her school for girls in Beacon Hill. Hershey was known for her work editing volumes of Robert Browning’s poetry, and had received honorary degrees from both Tufts and Bowdoin for her scholarly work. After graduating from Miss Hershey’s School, Katharine spent two years in Europe pursuing her education in France and Germany, before returning to Boston with her eye on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.