Katharine Hayden Salter was born Katharine Shepard Hayden on June 19, 1896, in Reading, PA, to Harry Johnson Hayden (OC academy, 1880-81, 1883-85) and Jessie Hinds Hayden. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1918 and pursued a career as a published writer and political, feministic, radical activist. She received both her A.B. in English Literature and her Master’s (1920) degrees from Oberlin College, and pursued additional studies beyond. As a student at Oberlin College, Katharine Shepard Hayden was a member of the Phi Alpha Phi Literary Society, secretary of the Student Government League, member of the Honor Court and League Council, Vice-President of the Union Library Association, member of the board of editors of the Literary Magazine, member of the YWCA Board, and a singer in the Musical Union. During her time as a student, she wrote poetry, and according to the 1919 edition of the OberlinAlumni Magazine, a college anthology called The Poets of the Future included some of her poems.  The Oberlin College Library holds some of her writings, including her poetry.

She attended a training camp at Vassar College (1918-1919) in order to become a nurse, and followed this training with two months of nursing at Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City. After this brief career in nursing, Katharine Shepard Hayden worked as an assistant Professor of English at Berea College, in Berea, Kentucky (1920-21), then ceased working professionally once she married John Thomas Salter (A.B. Oberlin College 1921).

The end of her professional career by no means heralded the end of her scholarly endeavors. Katharine Hayden Salter went on to write, disseminate, and occasionally publish a large number of essays, letters, and other writings, many of which expressed strong opposition to the censorship of women writers and encouraged open democratic acceptance of dissenting voices, especially female voices. These strong statements resulted in a great deal of criticism, including that of someone who referred to himself as “A Simple Man,” whose letter was published publicly in the newspaper and ultimately prompted Salter to write HerKitchen Fort.  Some of her writings, then, were considered quite controversial.

Her later writings, those that followed her marriage to John Thomas Salter, include “American Democracy and its Antecedents in England and America” (written in tandem with her husband and published in 1947), a number of essays, letters to the editors of newspapers including The Oberlin Times, her manuscript “The War on Republics and on the Individual,” and several manuscripts of poetry. She also wrote a great number of inflammatory political pamphlets, including “A Letter to Dr. ****,” “And Laurel Gardens Fall,” and “The Key to Carlson.” Towards the end of her life, the criticism against her increased, partly as a result of her inflammatory, pointed, and highly accusatory letters to various individuals including Presidents William E. Stevenson and Robert Kenneth Carr of Oberlin College.

She and her husband had five children between the years of 1922 and 1938: Katharine Shepard, Patricia Learned, Jean Hayden, Joel Hayden, and Christopher Lord. Both Patricia and Christopher attended Oberlin College, the former in 1941-42, and the latter graduating in 1961. Katharine Salter died at the age of 92 in Greenfield, Massachusetts in 1988.

Student file of Katharine Hayden Salter, Alumni Records (RG 28/2)
Biographical Files, 1921-89, n.d., Katharine Hayden Salter Papers, Series I (RG 30/335)