Dorothy SCHAFFTER

SCHAFFTER

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 10/25/2006 at 10:45:32

Dorothy Schaffter, 99, a former political science professor and college president who became a writer and researcher for the Legislative Research Service of the Library of Congress, died of pneumonia Oct. 8 at The Georgetown, a retirement residence in Washington. Dr. Schaffter joined the staff of the Library of Congress in 1946 and retired in 1964 as research counsel of the government division of the Legislative Research Service. She worked several more years as a consultant. While working for the library, she wrote a history of the National Science Foundation and books on the judicial interpretation of war's effect on life insurance contracts and the judicial interpretation of war's effect on military courts.

Dr. Schaffter was born in Eagle Grove, Iowa. She graduated from Northwestern University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received master's and doctoral degrees in political science from the University of Iowa. She taught at Iowa until 1930, when she joined the faculty of Vassar College. She was a full professor of political science at Vassar in 1943 when she was named president of Connecticut College for Women. She held that post until 1945, when she moved to Washington and became a writer and historian with the American Council on Education. She joined the Library of Congress the following year. Dr. Schaffter was an elder and trustee of Georgetown Presbyterian Church. In 1971, she wrote a history of the church. She leaves no immediate survivors.

Washington Post, The (DC)
October 11, 1993