Katherine Harwood Waller Barrett
Historical highway marker E-135 · Stafford County
Born nearby at Clifton, Katherine Harwood Waller Barrett earned medical and nursing degrees. She devoted her professional life to the care and education of unmarried pregnant women, a group previously treated as outcasts. With philanthropist Charles Nelson Crittenton, Barrett founded a rescue home for unmarried pregnant girls in Atlanta in 1893. After her move to Northern Virginia, they co-founded the National Florence Crittenton Mission, the first philanthropic institution chartered by Congress. Supported by presidents, Barrett pursued her pioneering work nationally and internationally. For the first time for a woman, the flag at the Virginia State Capitol was lowered at her death in 1925.
Department of Historic Resources, 2008