Kate Albright

Kate Catherine Albright is a woman of considerable business intelligence and psychological insight who has built a successful and profitable establishment in the town. Though she appears respectable on the surface, her true operation depends on her ability to control and manipulate the women who work for her. Kate is not malevolent in the theatrical way that Cathy Ames is; rather, she is coldly pragmatic, viewing human beings as resources to be managed for profit.

When Cathy Ames arrives at Kate's establishment, the two women recognize in each other a fundamental similarity—an absence of genuine human feeling coupled with a talent for manipulation and control. They develop an unlikely partnership based on mutual respect for each other's capabilities. Kate's character demonstrates that moral failure and the capacity for exploitation are not unique to the Adam Trask family but are embedded in the larger social and economic systems that shape the valley.