Berkeley Planning Journal

Right after she graduated from Vassar in 1926, Catherine Bauer took offfor the grand tour ofEurope. She had studied English literature, had considered studying architecture, and was interested in the arts. So the idea of checking-out the European scene seemed a fitting way to cap off her B.A. degree. As things turned out, the post-graduation tour proved powerfully influential on that impressionable young woman. She was so taken by the things she saw and the people she met that she would never be the same. She'd readily won acceptance everywhere she went, even in the inner circles of the Parisian cognoscenti, and the trip became the start of a lifelong career of inquiry and advocacy in housing and urban development.