Introduction

This chapter provides a brief biography of Katherine Kendall. There are two main reasons for this. First, we think readers will be curious about someone who has had an award named after her. Second, as an important figure in the ‘establishment’ phase of international social work, her personal and professional lives are a source of the ideas and interests that formed conceptions of international social work and its education. This biography draws on: interviews with Katherine Kendall (Billups, 2002c; Watkins, 2010; Foxwell, 2014b); biographies and tributes (Beless, 2004; Healy, 2008d); and Kendall's own published accounts of some of her activities in her lifetime (Kendall, 1994).

Kendall's career-defining roles were a series of executive management posts at CSWE between 1952 and 1971. She always had significant international responsibilities. For most of this time she was also Honorary Secretary (1954-71) and then, after leaving CSWE, the first full-time paid Secretary-General (1971-8) of IASSW. In retirement, she was Honorary President of IASSW for over thirty years until her death in 2010. Her faithful service to IASSW and her time at the centre of international social work education thus spanned nearly 60 years. Her work with the UN, prior to her employment at CSWE and IASSW, meant she brought her understanding of international organizations, and the personal networks within them, into IASSW; this facilitated the development of its work with the UN.

Childhood, marriage and early career

Katherine Kendall was born in Scotland on 8 September 1910, the third of four children and the only girl. Her father, Roderick Tuach, emigrated to Canada in 1913, but joined a Canadian Scottish regiment and was seriously wounded fighting in France during World War I. He sustained a lifelong disability as a result. He returned to Canada doing war work, but then migrated to Chicago, to be joined by his family in 1920. Tuach and his wife returned to the family building and masonry business in Scotland when work in Chicago dried up in the 1930s depression, so Katherine maintained connections with Scotland for many years. Her letters show that she was in regular contact with her mother until the latter's death in 1980 (Klaassen, 2016a).