Archives West Finding Aid

Katharine A. Wolfe was a teacher and administrator in the Seattle Public Schools for many years. Born in Nebraska in 1904, she came to the University of Washington intending to study botany, but changed her focus after developing an interest in modern dance. She started teaching physical education at Seattle’s Garfield High School in 1926, moving to Lincoln High School a year later, where she remained until 1944.

She integrated dance into her curriculum, particularly ballet and modern dance, and was a mentor to many students who went on to further dance studies and professional careers, most notable among them Martha Nishitani. Along with Nishitani, Maxine Cushing Gray, and Eleanor King, Wolfe was a member of the Friends of the Dance, a non-profit organization that sponsored dance performances and promoted dance appreciation in the Pacific Northwest.

Wolfe studied dance at the Cornish School in Seattle, and also traveled to New York, Vermont, and Germany to study with modern dancers, including Mary Wigman. While in Vermont in 1942, Wolfe began research on a book that would eventually be titled The Concert Dance. This was an extremely large project, at one time containing 1600 pages, for which she interviewed many prominent dancers and choreographers. Wolfe worked on her manuscript intermittently into the 1960s. Although unpublished at the time of her death, the manuscript was bequeathed by Wolfe to the Seattle Public Library. Wolfe passed away in 1990 at the age of 86.