Catherine Dorris Norrell (March 30, 1901 – August 26, 1981) was the third woman in Arkansas history to gain a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

Catherine Norrell worked alongside her husband for three decades and succeeded him in the United States House of Representatives following his death.

[6] Serving as president of the Congressional Wives Club, Norrell befriended Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Jonesboro, Arkansas, who was the first woman ever elected to the U.S.

"[10] Norrell was elected as a Democratic candidate to the Eighty-seventh United States Congress April 18, 1961, to fill the vacant seat.

[13] Norrell's first vote in Congress was in favor of the Kennedy administration's Cold War policies that proposed foreign aid to Latin American countries.

She made legislative strides to protect her home-state's clay, textile, and lumber industries through increased government control.

[15] Norrell noticed the wood industry within her district suffered from reduced tariff rates and she sequentially joined Representative Cleveland M. Bailey of West Virginia in supporting a bill that would ease Internal Revenue Service (IRS) efforts to collect retroactive taxes.

[21] After her term in Congress, President Kennedy appointed her Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs where she served from 1963 to 1965.