Catherine Ann "Kate"
Barnard
Buried
Fairlawn Cemetery in
Oklahoma City |
One of
Oklahoma's most outstanding woman
politicians,
"Kate" Barnard was born
Catherine Ann Barnard, in
Geneva, Nebraska, on May 23, 1875, to
John P.
and
Rachel
Sheill Barnard. Shortly after her birth, her parents moved to
northwestern Kansas. Her mother died two
years
later, and her father
temporarily abandoned her to
the care of relatives and neighbors.
Barnard
joined
her
father in Oklahoma City in 1891 and attended St. Joseph's
Academy. She lived on her father's claim
near
Newalla until she moved back
to Oklahoma City in
1895 to continue preparations to become
a teacher.
After
acquiring her territorial teaching
certificate, she taught in
several one-room schools
located within commuting distance of
Oklahoma
City.
Tired of teaching, she enrolled in
secretarial courses at a local
business
school. Using her Democratic Party and
Catholic connections, she
obtained a succession of
clerical patronage positions in the
territorial
government. In
1904 while serving as a hostess for
the
Oklahoma exhibit at
the St. Louis
World's Fair,
Barnard noticed urban
poverty and listened to
discussions by
social science experts who suggested
solutions. Returning
to Oklahoma City, she
discovered that her hometown also had
developed an
army
of indigents, so she began a career in charity
work. Believing that
women Catherine Ann Barnardhad
political potential, especially in the
area
of
social
justice reform, she entered politics in 1906 when Oklahoma
statehood was imminent. During the
Constitutional
Convention she convinced
delegates to adopt two
reform measures: the prohibition of
child labor,
and
the establishment of the office of
commissioner of charities and
corrections. After the convention the
Democratic
Party endorsed her
candidacy for the position of
commissioner, and she won the office by
a
greater
plurality than any other candidate in
Oklahoma's first general
election, in
which women could not vote. Barnard's
triumph at the polls made
her the first woman elected to a major
Oklahoma
state
office. As commissioner, she persuaded the
state legislature to
adopt laws requiring compulsory
education, regulating child labor, and
launching a
juvenile justice system. Her 1908
investigation of the
treatment of
Oklahoma prisoners held in a Kansas
prison rated national
headlines and enhanced her
reputation as a reformer. Her efforts
resulted
in
the
repatriation of the convicts and the subsequent creation of a
three-tier state prison system
consisting of a
penitentiary, a
reformatory, and a boys' training
school. She spent much of her time
supervising those
facilities as well as overseeing private
and public
humanitarian
institutions such as orphanages and
insane asylums.
In 1910 she
achieved
reelection by a
substantial margin, but her second
term proved less successful. She
embraced an
unpopular cause, the protection of
Indian orphans' property
rights. In 1913
and 1914 the legislature engaged in
a
ferocious attack on
the executive
branch, and
Barnard provided a target
for legislative
critics,
who slashed her department's budget and
thereby its size and
effectiveness.
Leaving office in 1915, Barnard
continued her campaign for
Indian property rights,
but with little success. Poor health and
depression
forced
her into seclusion, and she died in Oklahoma City on
February 23, 1930. Although she was one
of the
nation's most effective
social justice reformers and
one of its most successful woman
politicians,
she
did not establish enduring legacies for
reform and female political
activism in
Oklahoma. She was buried at
Fairlawn Cemetery in
Oklahoma
City.
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