Lifelong philanthropist believed in supporting women and girls.
Katharine Sloan Pratt (1877-1968)
In 1957, the Packer Collegiate Institute, then an all-girls private school in Brooklyn Heights, dedicated Pratt Hall, a building housing a large gym, theater, library, classrooms, and dining room financed by a former student, Katharine Sloan Pratt.
Katharine was carrying on a family tradition of philanthropy and community service. Her brother Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., was a long-time president, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation. During World War II, under Alfred’s direction, General Motors converted 102 automotive plants to manufacture armaments; no cars were produced. And in 1945, Alfred and his associate at GM, Charles F. Kettering, donated $2.6 million to establish the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in Manhattan.
Their father, Alfred Pritchard Sloan Sr., a coffee and tea importer with Bennett-Sloan and Company, studied at a Methodist seminary in Connecticut, was active in the church’s social services and ministries, and was president of the Methodist Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn.
Katharine was born in November 1877 to Alfred Sr. and his wife, Katharine Mead Sloan. The family lived in New Haven, Connecticut, until 1886, when they moved to Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood. The younger Katharine graduated in 1898 from Packer Junior College and became the first former student elected to its governing board.
In 1903, she married Albert Houghton Pratt, the nephew of Albert Houghton of Houghton Mifflin book publishers. Albert was a rare-book curator at the Library of Congress who wrote under the pseudonym V. Valtra Parma. The name was no coincidence. Albert was a “disciple” of Mme. P. Mildred Parma, otherwise known as “The Lady in Purple,” an interpreter of the occult.
After Albert and Katharine’s highly publicized divorce in 1918, Katharine won sole custody of their daughter, Elisabeth. The New York Supreme Court Justice didn’t buy Mme. Parma and Albert’s claim that teacher and student occupied a bungalow together at nights for “higher thoughts.” “Ordinarily, such conduct is deemed sufficient to warrant a divorce,” the judge declared. “The court takes the ordinary view.” During the trial, Katharine’s father was quoted as saying he was willing to give Katharine $1 million to divorce her husband.
Katharine never remarried, and she dedicated much of her time to helping women and girls. In November 1930, she was co-chair of a campaign for the Brooklyn YWCA that raised more than $86,000. The Y’s executive secretary called it “The finest we have ever had.” She continued as campaign and finance chairman of the Brooklyn Y until 1945. She also was a member of Packer’s board of trustees from 1935 to 1962, and after she resigned, Elizabeth, another Packer alumna, took her place.
Katharine, who had moved to Long Island to be near Elisabeth and her husband, John H. Livingston, in Oyster Bay Cove, died in March 1968. Both Katharine and her brother Alfred are buried in Saint John’s Memorial Cemetery in Laurel Hollow.
The Katharine Sloan Pratt Fund supports hospitals in Nassau County and New York City.