Kate Elderkin Explained

Kate Elderkin
Birth Name:Kate Denny McKnight
Birth Date:February 14, 1897
Birth Place:San Diego, California, U.S.
Death Date:February 16, 1962 (aged 65)
Death Place:Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation:Art historian, archaeologist
Relatives:Elizabeth Pierce Blegen (cousin)

Kate Denny McKnight Elderkin (February 14, 1897[1] – February 16, 1962) was an American art historian and archaeologist. She taught at Vassar College and was an editor of the American Journal of Archaeology with her husband, George W. Elderkin.

Early life and education

Kate Denny McKnight was born in San Diego and raised in Riverside, California, the daughter of Woodruff McKnight and Cora Burdon McKnight. Her father died when she was very young;[2] her mother remarried, to Arthur Robinson Ocheltree.[3] [4] Both her father and her stepfather owned orange orchards in California. Her younger brother Arthur Ocheltree became an opera singer in the 1930s, and younger brother John Ocheltree was a Rhodes Scholar and a diplomat.[5] She graduated from Vassar College in 1919,[6] and earned a master's degree in 1920.[7] She completed doctoral studies at Radcliffe College in 1922.[8] Her cousin Elizabeth Denny Pierce Blegen was an archaeologist.[9]

Career

McKnight taught art at Vassar College,[10] and participated in excavations in North Africa and in the Greek Islands as a young woman. From 1925 to 1931, she edited the book review section of the American Journal of Archaeology, while her husband was editor in chief.[11] She spoke about archaeological topics to women's clubs.[12] Her studies of everyday objects in antiquity, including jointed dolls and buttons, drew attention beyond her academic field.[13] [14] In 1944 she published a travel memoir, From Tripoli to Marrakesh.

Publications

Personal life

McKnight married archaeologist George Wicker Elderkin in 1924, at Union Theological Seminary, with Harry Emerson Fosdick performing the ceremony.[22] They had three children. In 1936 she made a roadtrip from New Jersey to California with her brother Arthur and his colleague, Emanuel Marti-Folgado. She died in 1965, at the age of 62, at her home in Princeton, New Jersey.[23] [24]

Notes and References

  1. Birth date and father's name from Kate Denny McKnight's 1920 application for a United States passport; historian Ida Thallon Hill, her cousin's partner, vouched for McKnight's citizenship on the same form; via Ancestry.
  2. News: 1898-06-04 . Woodruff McKnight . 2024-10-09 . Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . 4 . Newspapers.com.
  3. News: 1927-02-08 . $200,000 Estate Left by Mrs. M'Knight . 2024-10-09 . Reno Gazette-Journal . 6 . Newspapers.com.
  4. News: 1927-02-03 . Death Follows Long Illness . 2024-10-09 . Reno Gazette-Journal . 6 . Newspapers.com.
  5. News: 1936-04-30 . Singer Returns to Native Town; Arthur Ocheltree Has Become Famous Since He Left Riverside . 2024-10-09 . Riverside Daily Press . 7 . Newspapers.com.
  6. Vassar College, Vassarion (1919 yearbook): 88. via Internet Archive.
  7. News: June 17, 1920 . Vassar Confers Degrees on 1920 . Miscellany News . 1, 5.
  8. News: 1924-05-07 . Kate M'Knight Weds Professor . 2024-10-09 . Riverside Daily Press . 7 . Newspapers.com.
  9. Web site: Langridge-Noti . Elizabeth . Elizabeth Pierce Blegen (1888–1966) . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20060520102750/http://www.brown.edu/Research/Breaking_Ground/bios/Blegen_Elizabeth%20Pierce.pdf . May 20, 2006 . March 24, 2017 . Breaking Ground: Women in Old World Archeology . Brown University.
  10. News: 1919-02-27 . Kate M'Knight is Highly Honored . 2024-10-09 . Riverside Daily Press . 2 . Newspapers.com.
  11. Web site: Elderkin, Kate . 2024-10-09 . Dictionary of Art Historians . en.
  12. News: 1925-01-10 . Ancient Aegean Homes is Subject of Lecture; Dr. Kate Elderkin Speaker at Woman's Club Yesterday . 2024-10-09 . The News and Advance . 8 . Newspapers.com.
  13. News: 1931-03-09 . Children's Graves Tell Story of Jointed Doll . 2024-10-09 . The Grand Rapids Press . 16 . Newspapers.com.
  14. News: 1928-10-04 . Greeks Used Buttons on Armor . 2024-10-09 . Stanton Register . 3 . Newspapers.com.
  15. Elderkin . Kate McKnight . 1924 . Chachrylion and His Vases . Harvard Studies in Classical Philology . 35 . 75–136 . 10.2307/310710 . 310710 . 0073-0688.
  16. McKnight . Kate Denny . June 1924 . The Ulysses Panels by Piero di Cosimo at Vassar College . The Art Bulletin . en . 6 . 4 . 99–102 . 10.1080/00043079.1924.11409430 . 0004-3079.
  17. Elderkin . Kate McK. . 1925 . Aphrodite Worship on a Minoan Gem . American Journal of Archaeology . 29 . 1 . 53–58 . 10.2307/497722 . 497722 . 0002-9114.
  18. Elderkin . Kate McK. . 1926-04-01 . An Alexandrian Carved Casket of the Fourth Century . American Journal of Archaeology . en . 30 . 2 . 150–157 . 10.2307/497432 . 497432 . 0002-9114.
  19. Elderkin . Kate McK. . 1928-07-01 . Buttons and Their Use on Greek Garments . American Journal of Archaeology . en . 32 . 3 . 333–345 . 10.2307/497471 . 497471 . 0002-9114.
  20. Elderkin . Kate McK . 1930-10-01 . Jointed Dolls in Antiquity . American Journal of Archaeology . en . 34 . 4 . 455–479 . 10.2307/498710 . 498710 . 0002-9114.
  21. Book: Kate Denny McKnight Elderkin . From Tripoli to Marrakesh . 1944-01-01 . The Pond-Ekberg company . Internet Archive.
  22. News: 1924-05-06 . Vassar Romance Now Revealed . 2024-10-09 . Middletown Times Herald . 1 . Newspapers.com.
  23. News: 1962-02-18 . Kate Elderkin . 2024-10-09 . Vallejo Times-Herald . 4 . Newspapers.com.
  24. via Associated Press. Mrs. George Elderkin", The Daily Home News, February 17, 1962. Accessed October 9, 2024, via Newspapers.com. "Princeton - Kate McKnight Elderkin, former Vassar College instructor and trustee of Miss Fine's School here, died today at her home, 11 Hazlet Ave."

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