Helen Tunnicliff Catterall

Helen Tunnicliff Catterall (March 3, 1870 – November 10, 1933) was an American lawyer, writer, and historian, based in Chicago. She is best known for her five-volume Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro, published between 1926 and 1937.

Helen Tunnicliff Catterall
Born
Helen Honor Tunnicliff

March 3, 1870
Macomb, Illinois, USA
DiedNovember 10, 1933
Richmond, Virginia, USA
OccupationLawyer, writer, historian
ChildrenRalph T. Catterall
Parent(s)Damon G. Tunnicliff
RelativesSarah Bacon Tunnicliff (sister)

Early life

Helen Honor Tunnicliff was born in Macomb, Illinois, the daughter of judge Damon G. Tunnicliff and his second wife, Sarah Alice Bacon Tunnicliff.[1][2] She graduated from Vassar College in 1889,[3][4] and gave an address at commencement on "The New Astronomy."[5] After Vassar, Tunnicliff earned a law degree and pursued further studies in political science at the University of Chicago.[1]

Her younger sisters also graduated from Vassar.[6] Sarah Bacon Tunnicliff (1872–1957) was a director of the Woman's City Club of Chicago and a social reformer, and Ruth May Tunnicliff (1876–1946) became a medical researcher and president of the Chicago Society of Pathologists.[7][8]

Career

Tunnicliff practiced law in Massachusetts and Illinois, and taught at Cornell University. She was also director of a children's home in Ithaca.[7] She is best known as main author of the five-volume Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro (1926–1937),[9] written with support from the Carnegie Foundation.[10] Her work remains a useful source on the legal history of slavery in the United States,[11][12] and is still referenced in controversies on the subject, almost a century after its publication.[13]

Personal life

In 1896, Helen Tunnicliff married English-born historian Ralph Charles Henry Catterall (1866–1914).[4] They had a son, Ralph Tunnicliff Catterall (1897–1978), who followed his mother into a law career. Helen Tunnicliff Catterall died in 1933, aged 63 years, in Richmond, Virginia, where her son lived. Her papers are archived at the University of Chicago Library.[3]

References
  1. Tunnicliff (1896-06-25). "Marriage of Catteral". Chicago Tribune. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-01-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. "Mrs. Sarah Tunnicliff, Widow of Justice, Dies". Chicago Tribune. 1936-06-24. p. 25. Retrieved 2021-01-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Guide to the Helen Tunnicliff Catterall and Ralph C. H. Catterall Family Papers circa 1840s-1956". University of Chicago Library. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  4. "Personals, Vassar Miscellany". Vassar Newspaper & Magazine Archive. June 1, 1896. p. 458. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  5. "Commencement at Vassar". The Baltimore Sun. 1889-06-15. p. 1. Retrieved 2021-01-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Hallwas, John (August 20, 2011). "The Remarkable Tunnicliff sisters: Part 2 - Sarah and Ruth". The McDonough County Voice. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  7. Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. American Commonwealth Company. 1914. pp. 167–168, 827.
  8. "Dr. Ruth Tunnicliff". Chicago Tribune. 1946-09-23. p. 18. Retrieved 2021-01-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. Boyd, William K. (1930). "Review of Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro". The American Historical Review. 35 (3): 636–638. doi:10.2307/1838458. ISSN 0002-8762.
  10. Catterall, Helen Tunnicliff; Hayden, James J.; Matteson, David Maydole (1926–1937). Judicial Cases concerning American Slavery and the Negro. Carnegie institution of Washington publication no. 374. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie institution of Washington.CS1 maint: date format (link)
  11. Gabbidon, Shaun L.; Greene, Helen Taylor (2012-03-22). Race and Crime. SAGE. p. 171. ISBN 978-1-4522-0260-0.
  12. Sweet, John Wood (2006). Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730-1830. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 441. ISBN 978-0-8122-1978-4.
  13. Russ, Valerie (2019-02-12). "Slaves, or indentured servants?". The Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. A2. Retrieved 2021-01-23 – via Newspapers.com.
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