1956-1975: Presidential Appointments
Not only were Shouse's talents and abilities acknowledged and appreciated by local communities and organizations, her gifts were honored and utilized by many United States Presidents. In addition to her appointment by President Coolidge to Chair the first Federal Prison for Women, at the request of President Hoover, Shouse organized the Washington Hungarian Relief Fund and raised a half-million dollars in less than a month (1956). Shouse was appointed by President Eisenhower to Chair the President's Music Committee from 1957 to 1963.
President Eisenhower also appointed Shouse to the first Board of Trustees of the National Cultural Center (1958). President Nixon reappointed Shouse to that position in 1962. In 1964, the National Cultural Center was renamed The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts following the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. President Nixon appointed Shouse to the Board of Trustees of the renamed Kennedy Center for a ten year term in 1970. During that time, Shouse also served on the Excutive and Building Committees of the Kennedy Center. Shouse was appointed to the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Commission in 1973 by President Nixon. She was appointed to the official commissions on women's rights by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and John Kennedy. Last but not least, in 1975 President Ford appointed Shouse to the Commission on Presidential Scholars.
In addition to her Presidential appointments, Shouse was appointed to the first Virginia Commission of the Arts and Humanities in 1968, by Governor Mills E. Godwin Jr.. In 1971, Shouse was reappointed to that position by Governor Linwood Holton.
Read more about this topic: Catherine Filene Shouse
Famous quotes containing the words presidential and/or appointments:
“Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“All appointments hurt. Five friends are made cold or hostile for every appointment; no new friends are made. All patronage is perilous to men of real ability or merit. It aids only those who lack other claims to public support.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)