Kate Barnard

Barnard was born in Geneva, Nebraska, on May 23, 1875, to John P. and Rachel Sheill Barnard.Musslewhite, Lynn, and Suzanne Jones Crawford, "[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/B/BA020.html Barnard, Catherine Ann (1875–1930)]," [http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/ Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100531193517/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/ |date=2010-05-31 }} (accessed May 7, 2010). Her mother died when she was two and the family was living in Kansas. She was raised by relatives until 1891, when she moved to Newalla, Oklahoma, where her father, a jack-of-all-trades, had a land claim. {{efn|Historian Joseph Thoburn wrote that her father was a civil engineer.[https://books.google.com/books?id=gfQ_AAAAYAAJ Thoburn, Joseph B. A Standard History of Oklahoma. p. 1329. 1916.] Accessed August 5, 2020.}}She lived alone on the claim for two years while he lived and worked in Oklahoma City. She moved to Oklahoma City in 1895, attended St. Joseph's Academy (a Catholic school), obtained a teaching certificate, and taught until 1902.[http://oklahomatoday.com/oklahomatoday/MAGAZINE/Features/ND12_-_Saint_Kate_2.html "Saint Kate." Oklahoma Today.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140819090043/http://oklahomatoday.com/oklahomatoday/MAGAZINE/Features/ND12_-_Saint_Kate_2.html |date=2014-08-19 }} Logan, Jim. December 2012. Retrieved August 11, 2014.

After she quit teaching, Barnard took a business course, then became a secretary for the territorial legislature in Oklahoma City. In 1904, she was selected from among 500 applicants to be a "territorial hostess" at the St. Louis World's Fair. While in St. Louis, she met Jane Addams and others who were active in social reform movements. She also was exposed to big-city slum life, crime and other related social ills. From then on, she became a reformer.

Prior to Oklahoma statehood, Barnard was involved in aid and charity work in Oklahoma City and was the head of the union-label organization in Oklahoma. She also participated in the Farm-Labor meetings of 1906 in Shawnee which drafted the "Shawnee Demands" that later formed the basis of the soon-to-be-drafted Oklahoma state constitution.

File:OklahomaKate.jpg

Image:Catherine Ann Barnard, 1912.jpg

After her election as the Charities and Corrections Commissioner, she was a key player in the enactment of the compulsory education laws, state support of poor widows dependent on their children's earnings, and statutes implementing the constitutional ban on child labor. She also was an advocate for working Oklahomans through the work she did in securing legislation aimed at eradicating unsafe working conditions and the blacklist of union members. She was one of the few public officials who dared to cry out against the abuse of Native American children. Barnard relied on her stirring speeches to reach the public and convince the political powers of the need for increased federal protection for all Five Tribes' members.

Some{{Who|date=August 2020}} have said that her most important action may have been when she uncovered the abusive treatment of Oklahoma prisoners who were being held in Kansas prisons under contract, which included forced labor in coal mines and torture. She was featured as an anti-suffragist in Good Housekeeping who discussed her work uncovering the abuses of Oklahoma prisoners.{{Cite journal |last=Martin |first=I.T. |date=July 1912 |title=Concerning Some of the Anti-Suffrage Leaders |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1934095268 |journal=Good Housekeeping |volume=55 |pages=a80–a83 |id={{ProQuest|1934095268}} }} Her work and the pressure she put on Oklahoma's first Governor, Charles N. Haskell, resulted in the return of the prisoners to Oklahoma and the construction of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma.

Her political career ended during her second term in office, after she began to advocate on behalf of Indian wards who were being cheated out of their land as a result of grafting. During this time, her office produced the first official governmental investigative report of the Osage Indian murders.{{cite news |last1=Stanley |first1=Tim |title=Kate Barnard was one of the first to look into the Osage Reign of Terror, and it cost her |url=https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/indigenous/kate-barnard-was-one-of-the-first-to-look-into-the-osage-reign-of-terror/article_2dff2dfc-2a57-11ee-b46f-13305e1f2d25.html |access-date=30 October 2023 |work=Tulsa World |date=October 18, 2023}} Her work on behalf of Indian children raised the ire of William H. Murray and other prominent Oklahoma businessmen and officials who convinced the state legislature to defund her office. Wilma Mankiller's 1993 book, Mankiller, A Chief and Her People, on page 173 quotes Barnard: "I have been compelled to see orphans robbed, starved, and burned for money. I have named the men and accused them and furnished the records and affidavits to convict them, but with no result. I decided long ago that Oklahoma had no citizen who cared whether or not an orphan is robbed or starved or killed – because his dead claim is easier to handle than if he were alive."

During the rest of her life, Barnard continued to live in Oklahoma (often traveling to Colorado and other states during the summer due to her severe health problems) and she died on February 23, 1930, in Oklahoma City (where she was found dead in a hotel bathroom). She was buried in Oklahoma City (in a grave that was not marked until the 1980s), but today a bronze statue of her is on display on the first floor of the Oklahoma State Capitol. She was inducted in the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1982.

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{{Election box begin | title=1907 Oklahoma Commissioner of Charities and Corrections election{{cite web |title=General Election – September 17, 1907 |url=https://www.ok.gov/elections/documents/1907-1912_RESULTS.pdf |access-date=May 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200725155307/https://www.ok.gov/elections/documents/1907-1912_RESULTS.pdf |archive-date=July 25, 2020 |url-status=dead}}}}

{{Election box winning candidate with party link|

|party = Democratic Party (United States)

|candidate = Kate Barnard

|votes = 134,300

|percentage = 55.2

|change = New

}}

{{Election box candidate with party link|

|party = Republican Party (United States)

|candidate = Haxel Tomlinson

|votes = 98,960

|percentage = 40.7

|change = New

}}

{{Election box candidate with party link|

|party = Socialist Party of America

|candidate = Kate Richards O'Hare

|votes = 9,615

|percentage = 3.9

|change = New

}}

{{Election box gain with party link|

|winner = Democratic Party (United States)

|swing = N/A

}}

{{Election box end}}

{{Election box begin no change

| title = 1910 Oklahoma Commissioner of Charities and Corrections general election{{cite news |title=Official Vote |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/582249895/?terms=%22Winnie%20Branstetter%22&match=1 |access-date=7 April 2023 |work=The McAlester News-Capital |date=December 16, 1910 |page=9}}

}}

{{Election box winning candidate with party link no change

| candidate = Kate Barnard (incumbent)

| party = Democratic Party (United States)

| votes = 120,703

| percentage = 51.05%

}}

{{Election box candidate with party link no change

| candidate = Kate Himrod Biggers

| party = Republican Party (United States)

| votes = 91,907

| percentage = 38.86%

}}

{{Election box candidate with party link no change

| candidate = Winnie Branstetter

| party = Socialist Party of America

| votes = 23,872

| percentage = 10.09%

}}

{{Election box total no change

| votes = 236,482

| percentage = 100

}}

{{Election box hold with party link no change

| winner = Democratic Party (United States)

}}

{{Election box end}}

{{clear}}

{{notelist}}

• Jeannette Rankin first woman elected to the United States Congress
• Oklahoma Constitution

{{clear}}

• [http://www.sandravanzandt.com/kate_barnard.htm Katie Barnard "Our Good Angel" (information on the statue erected in her honor)]
• One Woman's Political Journey: Kate Barnard and Social Reform 1875–1930 by Lynn Musslewhite and Suzanne Jones Crawford
• [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9013411 "Barnard, Kate." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 11 Mar. 2006 ]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070313015731/http://redflagpress.nfshost.com/#ourhero Our Heroine, Kate Barnard (Red Flag Press)]
• {{citation

| first = Julian

| last = Leavitt

| title = The Man In The Cage

| journal = The American Magazine

| publisher = The Phillips Publishing Co.

| date = February 1912

| volume = LXXIII

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ZOMvAAAAMAAJ

| issue = 5}}

• [http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/B/BA020.html Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – "Barnard, Kate"]
• {{Find a Grave|9564189}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20140819090043/http://oklahomatoday.com/oklahomatoday/MAGAZINE/Features/ND12_-_Saint_Kate_2.html "Saint Kate." Oklahoma Today.] Logan, Jim. December 2012. Retrieved August 11, 2014.

{{Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnard, Kate}}

Category:1875 births

Category:1930 deaths

Category:People from Geneva, Nebraska

Category:American women sociologists

Category:American sociologists

Category:Women in Oklahoma politics

Category:20th-century Oklahoma politicians

Category:20th-century American women politicians

Category:Politicians from Oklahoma City

Category:Oklahoma Democrats

Category:Oklahoma Commissioners of Charities and Corrections