Kathryn Helene Starbuck

Kathryn Helene Starbuck (November 16, 1887 – November 19, 1965) was an American lawyer, suffragette, and law professor from New York.

Life and legacy Starbuck was born on November 16, 1887, in Saratoga Springs, New York, the daughter of Edgar D. Starbuck, a merchant and founder of E. D. Stark & Company, and Ella F. Martin. She had two younger brothers, and lived with one of them, Edgar, all her life.

Starbuck attended Saratoga Springs High School. She spent the next year doing legal editorial work for the New York State Library in Albany, and in 1915 she was admitted to the state bar. She initially worked as chairman of the Women's Suffrage Committee in Saratoga County, and then became associated with the law firm Rockwood & McKelvey. In 1918, she moved to New York City and spent a year working with the law firm Rockwood & Lark. She also acted as vice chairman of the New York League of Women Voters at that time.

In 1918, Starbuck was one of the first women named to the Executive Committee of the New York State Democratic Committee. She remained an active member of the Democratic Party for the rest of her life. After 1920, she served on the Committee for the Uniform Laws for Women of the National League of Women Voters, and campaigned to allow women to serve on jury duty. She compiled a list of laws related to women and children as well as information on office holdings and occupation for Ida Husted Harper's History of Woman Suffrage, but the information wasn't included in the final draft.

In 1937, Starbuck unsuccessfully ran as a delegate for the State Constitutional Convention. Under Governor Herbert Lehman, she headed the Woman's Advisory Commission of the State Department of Labor. She and other committee members resigned in 1943 when their recommendation for a bill guaranteeing equal pay for women was ignored. The bill was signed into law a year later, and she attended the bill's signing by Governor Thomas E. Dewey. During World War II, she urged women to participate in the war effort as program coordinator of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs. In 1945, Governor Dewey appointed her to the New York State Woman's Council. In 1949, she was one of the ten women suggested to be sent to Germany as an advisor to help women adjust to the post-war environment.

In 2022, a National Votes for Women Trail marker was unveiled in Saratoga Springs commemorating Starbuck. The marker was placed outside a home on 11 Fifth Ave, which was the home Starbuck grew up in.