Katharine Whiteside Taylor

Katharine Whiteside Taylor (December 24, 1897 – February 23, 1989) was an American author, educator and pioneer of the parent cooperative preschool movement. She wrote several influential works on cooperative early childhood education that guided the development of parent-run preschools across North America.

Early life and education Taylor was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Adelaide Schroeder Whiteside, a former school principal and advocate for women's suffrage, and Henry Robert Whiteside, a classical scholar. She graduated the University of Wisconsin in 1919, where she majored in English, graduated with high honors.

In the 1930s she pursued graduate study at Teachers College, Columbia University, earning her doctorate in 1937 under the supervision of psychologist Lois Meek Stolz. The school is now considered the oldest continuously operating cooperative preschool in the United States. In 1931, she published The Children's Community publication for the American Association of University Women describing setting up the preschool in Berkeley. It became an influential model for the development of other cooperative preschools across the country. Her study Do Adolescents Need Parents? was published in 1938.

By the mid-1950s, over 500 parent cooperatives operated in the United States, many using Taylor's writings as guides. In 1964, she was selected as a Fulbright lecturer in New Zealand. In 1965, Taylor traveled to Zurich to study for a year and a half at the C.G. Jung-Institut, reflecting her growing interest in psychotherapy and maintained a private practice.

Selected works

The Children's Community (1931) Parent Cooperative Nursery Schools (1954) Parents and Children Learn Together (1958) Fiftieth Anniversary History of the Parent Cooperative Movement, 1916–1966 Understanding and Guiding the Adolescent Child: Do Adolescents Need Parents?