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Kate Barnard: Intrepid
Pioneer to Centennial Legend
By Dixie Belcher
Kate Barnard
Kate Barnard (1875-1930) lived in Oklahoma Territory and worked as a secretary to the Territorial House of Representatives. While stumping for the Constitutional Convention she
addressed the problems of child labor, sweatshops, tenements, and juvenile justice. She combined forces with Pete Hanraty on labor issues and Alfalfa Bill Murray on farm issues
and was nominated as the only woman on the Democratic ticket for the office of Charities and Corrections. Known as the “good angel of Oklahoma” she won handily in Oklahoma’s
first election as a new state and was the first woman to be elected in the United States to a major political office. In her reign as Commissioner from 1907-1915 she worked for
child labor reform, compulsory education, better pay and working conditions, improved conditions in jails, hospitals and mental institutions. She uncovered scandals involving the
treatment of Oklahoma prisoners in Lansing, Kansas and the misuse of funding for Indian orphans by their guardians.
Kate Barnard was one of the most revered women in Oklahoma in the early 1900s,
known as “Our Kate, Oklahoma Kate, the Good Angel of Oklahoma, and Joan of Arc
of Oklahoma” for her tireless work for Progressive reform. She was responsible for
the legislation and implementation of social services and correctional programs that
we take for granted today. A men’s correctional facility holds her name and a recent
statue was commissioned for the state capitol rotunda. Sculptor Sandra VanZandt of
Oologah a presents Kate in her inaugural dress sitting on a bench with a copy of her
report in her lap. In 1994 Danney Goble mentions her in his Story of Oklahoma, in
1997 Linda Willams Reese includes a chapter in Women of Oklahoma and in 2001 and
2003 two biographies were published of her life by Bob Burke and Glenda Carlille,
and Lynne Musslewhite and Suzanne Jones Crawford, respectively. Previous to that
very little mention was made of the petite social reformer.
The notable exceptions much earlier in the century, however, were Angie Debo’s
And Still the Waters Run documentation of injustices toward Indians that Barnard
uncovered during her last term of office and Ambassador Bryce of England’s
compliment of Oklahoma’s constitution, giving Barnard credit, “It is the finest
document of human liberty written since the Declaration of Independence, and the
credit for making it such is due, principally, to the activities of a single woman – Kate
Barnard.” (Burke/Carlille)
Why was there such a long period of time between being adored and then ignored
Probably because her personality was rigid; she viewed the world in terms of rights
and wrongs. This frame of mind was both her greatest asset and fault. Strangely she
was unwilling to compromise while in office but former alliances brought her to the
attention of the men in power in the territory prior to statehood. In her late twenties
she campaigned throughout the territory for an alliance between farmers and labor.
Her speaking engagements filled halls and street corners with eager followers who
cast the votes in Oklahoma’s first election as a new state. Kate championed her
many causes in fiery editorials in the Daily Oklahoman and was considered an able
spokesperson in print and at the podium. One press report described her as “sweet
and dainty as a wild flower and as refreshing as an Oklahoma breeze.” (Musslewhite/
Crawford) Oklahoma historian Angie Debo at age seventeen attended a speech given
by Barnard and was moved by her eloquence and passion.
Ms. Barnard posed challenges to the early pioneers, asking for their assistance in
solving problems that children faced during this time. After one of her editorials,
titled “What are we to do about our poor” citizens appeared at her door with
clothing, bedding and furniture to be distributed to those in need. In 1906, the only
real form of public communications was the newspaper, and Kate was the voice of the
people. The Territorial Legislature reacted to Kate’s popularity by declaring that the
Office of Charities and Corrections could be directed by a “he or a she.” Kate Biggers, a
spokeswoman for suffrage ran on the opposing ticket. Barnard won the title of
Commissioner of Charities and Corrections in Oklahoma’s first election as a new state
and was the first woman to hold a major political office in the nation.
Kate Barnard was born in Nebraska in 1875, although she only admitted to a
birthdate of 1879. Her mother died when Kate was only 18 months old. She stated in
an article for The Independent, “My mother died when I was young that I cannot even
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remember her face. With her death the light on my pathway of life was blown out.” Her
father had a brief second marriage but Kate was estranged from her step-brother
from this marriage and her two step-brothers from her mother’s first marriage. Kate
had a difficult childhood living with maternal grandparents for a while and other
relatives and in her teens traveling with her father to several failed business ventures.
She was thrilled to be called to help her father in securing a claim in Oklahoma
Territory in her teens. She lived alone on the claim while her father practiced law in
Oklahoma City. At age 16 she moved to a house he built on West Reno in Oklahoma
City and was able to attend a catholic school.
What she saw from her windows overlooking Reno Street were settlers like herself,
only many with fewer resources. These people were ragged, hungry and homeless.
After a brief stint as a teacher, Kate worked as a stenographer and then served as
director of the United Provident Society. She became more and more outraged by
the lack of opportunities for the disadvantaged and wrote more editorials asking for
assistance in caring for them, not just with donated clothing and furniture but with
jobs. A turning point was her appointment to promote the Oklahoma statehood
exhibit at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. During her time there she toured the
slums and factories with a newspaper reporter who used Barnard’s descriptions of
those circumstances, “No man can deal intelligently with life until he first understands
how all classes of men live and under what conditions they make their daily bread.
Books are tools with which to work out human intelligence. How to apply this
intelligence can only be learned by knowledge. To get this knowledge I spent months
of life itself touring factories and workshops. I have breathed coal dust with children
in American coal breakers; I have turned sick with the pale young girls who are slowly
poisoned as they bottle arsenic in American drug houses; and I have breathed the glass
dust which was killing the child laborers at my side.” (Barnard)
Historians David Baird and Danney
Goble describe Barnard: Everything
she asked for she got: an eighthour
work day for state employees,
prohibition of child labor in mines
and factories, health and safety
legislation for workers—and more.
Even though women did not have the vote until 1920, the years in the early 1900s
were charged with social change, primarily implemented by women. As volunteers
they gave of their time, energy and resources championing suffrage, prohibition,
hygiene, improved working conditions and education. Barnard was at the forefront
of all of these movements, except suffrage. Although she believed in helping the