The World’s First Female Speech Therapist Katy “C.J.” Van Riper


Catherine Jane “Katy” “C.J.” Hull Van Riper was born in December 1909 in Washington, Iowa, to Dr. Henry Clay Hull and Hallie Berdo Hull. According to her husband’s biography of her, C.J., also known as Katy, “was precocious intellectually, or at least verbally,” leading to her graduation with honors from Washington High School as valedictorian.


After carefully considering where to attend college, she chose the familiar campus of the University of Iowa, where she had participated in contests and attended football games when younger—a decision that was “foreordained” according to her biography, “she was an Iowan with a capital I,” it reads.


During her junior year, she enrolled in a speech pathology class, a new fi eld of study at the university and one which seemed to fulfi ll her burgeoning interest is psychiatry and speech. “She did very well in it,” reads her biography, “and found it utterly fascinating.”


In her senior year, C.J. concentrated her studies in speech pathology. She observed others doing therapy in East Hall, and worked intensively with a few organic cases, several clients with articulation problems, and some foreign accent cases. She did not do any therapy with stutterers [sic] but observed in the stuttering clinic where she was enrolled.


She was the fi rst woman to graduate in the new fi eld of speech pathology.


Following advice from the head of the Speech Pathology department to “get away and meet new challenges,” she was turned down for the fi rst job to which she applied.


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THE STUTTERING FOUNDATION REMEMBERS


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