Catharine Gouger (Waugh) McCulloch (1862 - 1945)

Catharine Gouger Waugh was born June 4, 1862 in Ransomville, Niagara, New York, United States. She was a daughter of Susan Gouger and Abraham Miller Waugh.

Catherine was raised in Illinois, she graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1882, where she wrote a thesis on women's wages and earned both a B.A. and M.A. degree. Waugh then attended Chicago's Union College of Law (now Northwestern Pritzker School of Law). After graduating and passing the bar in 1886, Waugh sought employment in Chicago but faced gender discrimination. She returned to Rockford, Illinois and started her own practice.

In 1888, McCulloch unsuccessfully ran for state's attorney on the Prohibition party ticket.

In 1890, Catherine began serving as the legislative chair of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association.

On May 29, 1890, Catharine married her former law school classmate, Frank Hawthorn McCulloch. They moved to Chicago and merged practices to form the law firm of McCulloch and McCulloch. Catharine sought equality in her relationship as both a private and political arrangement. According to letters she sent to colleagues, she believed her marriage to McCulloch helped advance her career. Together they had four children: Hugh Waugh, Hathorn Waugh, Catharine Waugh, and Frank Waugh.

McCulloch and her colleagues at the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association actively lobbied for the bill from 1893 to 1913, even organizing train and automobile tours to rally suffrage supporters across the state.

In 1894, McCulloch and fellow members of the Chicago Woman's Club founded the Chicago Political Equity League to campaign for municipal suffrage. In addition to her suffrage work, McCulloch advocated for maternalist reform measures.

McCulloch was elected Justice of the Peace in Evanston, Illinois in 1907 (and re-elected in 1909), making her the first woman elected to that office in Illinois. While a Justice of the Peace, she made national headlines by agreeing to conduct egalitarian marriage ceremonies in which she omitted the word "obey" from the ritualized words the woman was supposed to say; at that time, the man pledged to "love, honor and cherish" while the woman pledged to "love, honor and obey."

In 1917, she was appointed as a master in chancery of the Cook County Superior Court. She became known for her advocacy in working to eliminate or modify marriage and divorce laws that discriminated against women, and she worked to create uniformity of such laws in all states.

She was the legal adviser for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (which became the League of Women Voters in 1920 after passage of the 19th Amendment) and was its first vice president. She also served as the legal adviser for the National Women's Christian Temperance Union.

Cather died of cancer on April 20, 1945 at the age of 82 in Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States. She was buried at Memorial Park Cemetery and Crematorium in Skokie, Cook County, Illinois, United States.

Sources

• "United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6W1-54D : 28 May 2021), Kittie Waugh in entry for A M Waugh, 1870.

"United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MX2S-GL3 : 19 February 2021), Catharine G Waugh in household of Abram M Waugh, New Milford, Winnebago, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district ED 223, sheet 84A

"Illinois, County Marriages, 1810-1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK9L-VMD5 : 19 February 2021), Frank H Mcculloch and Catharine G Waugh, 29 May 1890; citing Winnebago, Illinois, United States, county offices, Illinois

"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MS7X-CVF : accessed 31 August 2021), Catharine W Mc Culloch in household of Frank H Mc Culloch, New Trier Township Evanston city Ward 6, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 1160, sheet 8A, family 141

"United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV5Y-256X : 16 March 2018), Catharine Waugh Mcculloch, 1908; citing Passport Application, Illinois, United States, source certificate #52000, Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 - March 31, 1925, 60

"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKHP-SM5 : accessed 31 August 2021), Catharine W Mcculloch in household of Frank H Mcculloch, Evanston Ward 6, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 108, sheet 1B, family 18

"United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MJW7-94H : 1 February 2021), Catherine Waugh McPullock in entry for Frank H McPullock, 1920.

"United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KW4Q-6YW : 8 January 2021), Catharine W McCulloch in household of Frank H McCulloch, Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 16-213, sheet 3A, line 10, family 41, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940

"Illinois, Cook County Deaths, 1871-1998," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2MH-C5Z5 : 17 March 2018), Catharine Waugh Mcculloch, 20 Apr 1945; citing Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States, source reference , record number , Cook County Courthouse, Chicago

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/172450733/catharine-mcculloch