A Very OK Podcast
Episode 17: “Our Good Angel, Kate”
August 15, 2022
Episode Transcript
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson. I’m the director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, and here with me, as always, is Dr. Bob Blackburn. Bob, it’s great to see you today. We’ve been on a little bit of a break, so it’s great to be back in the studio again.
Dr. Bob Blackburn: Well, Trait, it is good to see you as well. I know both of us have been in Colorado some. You, visiting the mountains, and me visiting my grandsons. So it’s been a good summer.
Thompson: Yeah. Yeah, it’s been great. I had a chance to go to Rocky Mountain National Park back in June. Did a little bit of hiking out there. We did some whitewater rafting and probably ate too much food, but it was nice to get away. We had a very busy legislative session with a bond issue that we were trying to get passed, which I’m happy to let you all know that we did get that passed, a $46 million bond issue to address deferred maintenance and some improvements we need to make at our 24 museums and sites across the state. So that was a very busy session, and it was nice to get away into the mountain air for a few days.
Blackburn: Well, and Trait, I want to say congratulations because I worked for the Historical Society 42 years. I’ve now been away about a year and a half. And both as an observer of government and politics and getting things done and someone who knew about their problems here, I think what you accomplished this year is going to be transformative. Especially with 50% budget cuts the last 14 years, we were hanging on, barely, at many of our sites. We were just trying to keep them open with one person and a bare bones staff and knowing that roofs were leaking and we couldn’t do anything about it, but we had to keep it open. Well, this infusion of cash will allow us to raise the standards, which brings more visitors, which brings more revenue, which brings more public support.
I think it’ll be transformative in many ways; not just physically, but in terms of operation and support from the local communities, because they will see those sites as making progress, and everyone wants to be part of a winner. And that infusion of cash is going to bring that attention. And I think if you can leverage that into the future, it’s a real opportunity for you and the entire staff of the Historical Society and the Board of Directors. They’ve stayed in there and fought and encouraged and supported, and they deserve a lot of credit.
Thompson: Well, Bob, you were a transformative leader here at OHS for many, many years, and this beautiful building we’re sitting in right now, the Oklahoma History Center, is largely due to you and your team’s hard work to get that done, which was, you know, an incredible transformation for this agency. And just like you said, I’m hoping that this will be transformative for our museums and sites out in the field.
We have so many things that we need to do. You know, roofs that are leaking, and HVAC systems that need to be replaced, and parking lots that are falling apart, and also exhibits that need to be redone, that haven’t been touched in years and years. And so, all of our staff here at OHS is extremely excited about it, and we’re ready to move forward. And I do have to mention Senator Darcy Jech and Representative Avery Frix, who are our principal authors on that legislation, just really worked so well with us, really care about the OHS. But you don’t get this done without a lot of people caring about it, and we had so many legislators that were really backing us up on this,
Blackburn: You know, and ironically, my first relationship with Darcy, who is out of Kingfisher, a senator, was us closing a facility in Watonga. And the thing was just barely hanging on, and we got to the point we couldn’t support everything. And so that was one. And so, ironically, starting with, not a conflict, but at least a problem. But he understood when I would explain to him why we’re having to cut, what had happened to us. He listened, and not all elected officials listen. They’re looking at the next elections, generally, and they’re thinking, well, what can I do that’ll make sure I don’t lose? Darcy understood. He says, I’m going to take hits, and we worked together with the city, and the city now owns the facility, the Ferguson Home. The volunteers are probably more engaged than they were before. So it was a win-win, and Darcy understood it. And I love elected officials who will listen and work and say, well, yeah, we’ve got a problem. How do we get through it? And then Avery Frix, first time I met him, that youthful enthusiasm that he has for history, and culture, and his community, and being a native of Muskogee. He is a good leader that we hopefully will have around for a long time.
Thompson: Well, Senator Jech, we created a new award at our awards ceremony this year to be able to honor those legislators who really do come and support us in our mission here at the Oklahoma Historical Society. We call it the Guardian of History award. And so Senator Jech was the first senator to win that award this year, and Representative Carl Newton was the first representative to win it. But we want to recognize those legislators who really do get what we’re trying to do here and are real advocates for us, and so, stay tuned. We’ll see who wins our award next year. But we were excited to be able to give those awards.
Well, we’ve got a great topic to talk about today. And one of the things we want to talk about is a woman who made an incredible impact on Oklahoma’s history, but not a lot of people know who she is. And that is Kate Barnard. She was called “Our Angel Kate,” and she was someone who crusaded for social justice reform in the early days in Oklahoma. And we’re talking reform for the conditions that prisoners endured, the conditions of those who had to go to mental health hospitals, the conditions...that they called asylums back then, the conditions of orphans and the poor in the state. And so, later on, we’re going to have Connie Cronley come on with us. And she is the author of an incredible book called A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard. But we want to talk today just about the conditions in Oklahoma in the territorial days and statehood, leading up to when Kate Barnard comes on the scene, why her work was so important, and just a great conversation we’ve got ahead of us today, and I’m excited about it.
Blackburn: Me, too.
Thompson: Well, we always like to talk about movies. And so I was thinking about, you know, when we cover things like, you know, Westerns or we cover things like cavalry, you know, we can usually pick out about 50 different movies that you can talk about here. But when you talk about some of those social justice movies, it gets a little bit thinner. But there are some of them out there, and some of them are really, really good movies. And so, Bob, are there any movies that tackle social justice that you have enjoyed?
Blackburn: Oh, yes. In fact, the two that come to mind both have key players being women, and in both instances, they’re almost in a support role. But the convictions of their beliefs, and they understand what’s wrong, and they’re going to do something about it. One is Norma Rae, of course, a great movie about a young man that from New York City who comes into the South and is trying to unionize textile workers. And at first, the Norma Rae character, played by great Sally Field, who I actually met one time on the stage of The Flying Nun when my mom was covering movies and TV, but Norma Rae was this woman who was just barely getting by, and from the South. You know, that little way she was getting was important to support family, but yet she finally has this awareness. It grows on her. She sees the injustice, and she listens to this labor organizer, and she becomes the greatest advocate. And that great scene where she’s standing in the mill, standing up with that sign in her hand that we’re stronger together. We’ve got to unionize. Moving. In fact, tears still come to my eyes when I think about it.
The other one, with the great Jane Alexander, one of the great movie stars of all time, who probably did not get her due billing many times. But she played a woman who was in a state government in Arkansas who saw that there were problems with the criminal justice system and especially prisons, and she recruits a young man played by Robert Redford. Brubaker is the movie, and Brubaker comes in first, comes in as a prisoner. He wanted to see the problems from the inside out, not from the outside in, where things could be disguised and hidden. And he sees what’s happening, and he befriends a few of the prisoners. And then he, of course, says, well, no, I’m going to be your new warden. And then he starts after the corrupt system around the prisons where they’re using prison labor as slave labor, where they’re selling goods produced at the prison to make people rich. And the locals are in this corrupt system, and this corrupt system comes and says, well, Brubaker, you’re just going to be like every other warden. Here’s a stack of money. Here’s, you know, all this. But yet he fights back, and he goes down. He’s finally forced out. But the Jane Alexander commitment to reforming this system and taking care of these people who cannot take care of themselves. The passion of her role, the passion of Brubaker saying, I know I’m going to go down, but I’m going to go down fighting. Well, that’s the Kate Barnard story. I think in many ways, she knew she was fighting an uphill struggle. She took on an entire system, and we’ll hear more about that later from Connie, I’m sure. But those two movies have resonated with me as people who want to make a change. They see the problems and they’re not going to compromise.
Thompson: Yeah, one of the movies I’ve enjoyed in that arena is Erin Brockovich, came out in 2000, stars Julia Roberts and Albert Finney. But Julia Roberts is someone who goes to work as a legal analyst for Albert Finney’s law firm in the movie, and she stumbles across some information that a large power company out in California is actually contaminating the water supply, and you’re having a lot of the citizens out there that are starting to develop these diseases. And she discovers that the problem is much, much bigger than they even anticipated. And, of course, this law firm is very tiny. Usually you want to go, and you’re going to bring a suit like this, you go to some of the big people in the tall buildings in downtown. And Albert Finney’s firm takes on this case and ends up winning a massive class action lawsuit against the power company out there. And Julia Roberts ended up winning an Oscar for her role in that movie.
Another movie that I just thought of is Dead Man Walking, with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. And Susan Sarandon plays Sister Helen Prejean, who is still very active in the cause of trying to eliminate the death penalty. But the movie where she goes and she identifies with this man who’s on death row and kind of brings up some of the problems in the system with the death penalty, but also identifies with some of the victims. And so that’s a good one to check out as well. In fact, I have the book at home, and it’s on my list to get into that book as soon as I can, but I just finished reading A Life on Fire by Connie Cronley. So, I’ve got, I needed to get that one done first.
Well, Bob, let’s talk a little bit about the conditions in Oklahoma. You know, why is a Kate Barnard needed in, you know, early days of Oklahoma? Of course, much of what was those Unassigned Lands were really just empty territory until Oklahoma springs up in 1889. And then 1890, we become a territory. So, as we’re creating a territorial government and then creating a state government, what is life like for the people who are the poor and the downtrodden and the people who, you know, might be in prison or might be in a mental asylum? What is going on in our state at that time?
Blackburn: Well, you can really say from about 1890 to 1910 is the incubation time when the state, the present state of Oklahoma, kind of congeals. Of course, you have Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, but both are changing in the 1890s. Of course, in the Indian Territory, it’s allotment. The federal government finally winning the fight in 1887 to go forward with allotment. Nationally, Five Tribes fight back, but by ’98 they’ve lost the battle. And so in terms of sovereignty, the federal government is taking away parts of the sovereignty, emasculating tribal governments; no longer tribal courts to take care of people. That’s what the justice system is supposed to be about: justice and taking care of everyone. Well, suddenly it’s gutted. It goes to the federal courts that are understaffed. Really not that much involved at the local level. So you have about a decade there where the Indian Territory is going through this transition from sovereignty, with tribal governments able to take care. They had an asylums, and they had their own health care system. They had their education systems. They had ways of taking care of people. Well, suddenly they said, wait, it’s no longer your responsibility. In fact, you can’t do it. It’s against the law now. No one steps in. Well, and with allotment, that creates a potential goldmine of corruption for people who are willing to take advantage of another person. And as we know in life, even today, we see people trying to take advantage of others. And the scoundrels descend on the people of Indian Territory, many full-blood Indians who cannot even speak English, read English. They don’t understand contracts. They don’t understand the value of land. And this old communal system of taking care of one another is breaking down. And it’s fluid and creating possible problems. And then you have a lot of mining in that system that’s not regulated. The deep-shaft coal mines of the McAlester area, Krebs, Hartshorne. Then you have even deep-shaft mining in the Tulsa area at the time. And so you have mining, you have other big extraction industries, timber harvesting.
And then in the Oklahoma Territory, you get a series of events from 1889 forward. One, the Indian population there, although not as numerous as eastern Oklahoma, the Cheyenne-Arapaho, the Kiowa and Comanche, the Apache; these other tribes are being forced into allotment as basically Neolithic Stone Age people, with no tradition of government and taking care of each other. It was based on this nomadic lifestyle. And so they’re just thrown to the wolves almost overnight after ’92. And then on top of that, you have these land openings where people are coming and settling on the land. Well, generally, if you’re going to pick up stakes in Nebraska, or Kansas, or Missouri, or Illinois, and move out here to this wild frontier, you’re desperate. Why leave your church and your family and your support system that you have there to come out here, where conditions are harsh, a harsh climate that’s cyclical, and rain and dry? We know that right now in Oklahoma. Come out here, away from the people who can help you, and start something new. Well, land was a lure, but generally it was a culture of desperate people who were coming with very little in terms of material wealth to support them. And I don’t know the percentages exactly, but I would say pretty close to half of the people who staked a homestead never made it through the five years. They would move on if someone came in and purchased the relinquishment. And you finally have title after the five years, but these people were hard-living and suffering. And then you throw on top of that, it was an agricultural community.
As late as 1900, Oklahoma City was 10,000 people. Muskogee, maybe a little under 10,000. Guthrie, maybe 10,000. That those are the big cities, 10,000 people. So if you think about a city today, you know, in an area that’s maybe 5,000 people, not much different in our big cities. So most people are living out in the countryside, trying to make a living. There’s no social support system. Social Security would be 30 years away. We did not have state government with a welfare department. No county government for even commodities. I remember commodities in the 1950s. So, you didn’t have society coming together and saying, we’re going to work together through government to help those who can’t help themselves. So it fell to churches and families. Take and say, well, my neighbors are suffering, I’ll help. And of course, there was a lot of that. Oklahomans tend to share and want to help, but still there were people falling through. And then you get all these changes with the Industrial Age and corporate investments and all of this change. And then we approach statehood, and you have labor organizing, trying to take care of those deep-shaft miners who are dying by the dozens, just unsafe conditions. It was documented nationally at the time. The farmers are organizing. This was the age of the Oklahoma Farmers Union. It now goes by a different name, largely an insurance company, with some programs. But at first, it was a real organization of farmers working together to say, yes, we will pool our resources. We will have our representatives who represent the farmers’ union, and a lot of it was social, gave you a social network locally, in a little community, but then you had to elect a delegate who would go to a district, then you would have a district representative go to a state, and then the state would go to the federal. Started in Texas, came to Oklahoma by 1904. And so you’re getting organization among farmers, typically super independent as you see today. They don’t want any regulation, and then you see labor organizing with a voice, and then the church community that wants to do something about helping people, and they’re being overwhelmed. And you throw all of this together into this rapidly changing cauldron of combining two parts of the state together.
Thompson: Also, throw in the Panic of 1893, right? Which didn’t help anything.
Blackburn: Oh, every bank in Oklahoma City fails in 1893. Get another financial crisis in 1897. Then you have the ongoing droughts that would continue, and these were hard times. And out of this, we get some leaders who say, well, here’s the path that we think we should take. Well, then you get a few people who say, well, yeah, that’s the way to develop the economy. That’s the way to encourage building railroads that connects us and making the wheels of progress possible. But then there are a few people who say, wait a minute, we’ve also got to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves, those prisoners who were being sent to the Kansas State Prison, basically, slave labor, and the abuse they were getting there. We got to take care of these people who have mental health issues who are being put into jail. We have got to take care of these Indians who don’t understand the system, and they’re being fleeced of their possessions. They’re losing their mineral rights, their surface rights. And the abuse is there. We see it now. A lot of the popular books are there about the Osage murders. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, you know, only one little part of that.
But it’s a state that needs reform as we’re moving forward, and we have these voices. Peter Hanraty, coming out of the Labor Union, “Alfalfa Bill,” ironically, out of the Farmers Union community representing these farmers and what we want in a Constitution. And, fortunately, we had people like Kate Barnard, who became active in social welfare, organized labor, understood that there were people suffering, that we, as the people, should act through our corporate entity called government at the city, the county, the state level, as well as the federal. We call that the Progressive Movement. President Theodore Roosevelt would have been of the advocates of the urban Progressive Movement at the time. We’ve got to do something about the problem. But Kate would have been one of those voices working with the Peter Hanrattys of the world to say we can do better. And by the time you get to 1906, Congress saying, yes, you can make a state. And I haven’t even thrown in the problems with racism, being in a segregationist community where lynching was a way of life and applauded as these, you know, these vigilantes, you know, taking care of our community and the purity of our race. So you throw in all these problems, and to have a few people like Kate Barnard stand up and say it’s wrong. We’ve got to do something about it.
Thompson: Well, we have, you know, one of the prevailing attitudes at the time, and I think this was sort of driven by religion in some sense, but there was a sense that if something bad happened to you, that you deserved it. That, you know, God was probably punishing you for something you had done in your life, and that attitude actually goes all the way back to Roman times. I remember reading a book on the Roman Empire and them talking about the prevailing attitude being that if something bad was happening to you, it’s the gods were punishing you for something, and that carries forward all the way up. And so there, of course, were people like Kate Barnard who had compassion for the people who were on hard times, but there were other people who thought, well, you know, that’s kind of their fault, and they just need to work harder or do something else to get out of their bad times. But I want to read this from Connie Cronley’s book, and she’s talking about the industry at the time. She said “in industries, factories, and mines, the average workweek was 59 hours, but 84-hour workweeks were not unusual in some industries, such as steel. The average rate of pay was less than $10 a week, and 60% of the adult working male population did not earn enough money to support their families, so they put their children to work. Child labor meant that children, by the thousands, were employed 10 or 12 hours a day, and their jobs were among the most dangerous and lowest paid in the nation.”
Blackburn: And when I have to give my Rotary speeches, where I have 15 minutes to talk about some complex issue, you’re always trying to find ways to simplify. Well, if you look at the Progressive Movement, that yes, we can do something about these problems in our society, you’re going into the headwinds of two things. One is what you said, which I describe as Social Darwinism. So since the 1820s and ’30s, this theory is that the smart and the capable will succeed and the dumb and, you know, the lackards, will fall away and society will progress. Well, that was really part of that idea, is that Social Darwinism. And if someone is failing and they’re hungry and starving, that’s just the way society is. We’re going to get better. The other is laissez-faire government. Keep government out of our affairs. Keep it as simple as possible, as distant as possible. The best government is local because they are people in our clan. You throw in the Scots-Irish culture that really believes in that clannish leadership, is that county commissioners would be the most powerful forces in government for the first two decades of statehood because of that. But these progressives are fighting against that Social Darwinism. No, we cannot say that the weak and the meek are going to perish. We’ve got to take care of them as well. And then two, we need the voice of the people working through what we call government, which is only this contract that we’re all going to vote. We’re all on the, you know, the stockholders, and we have our board of directors, which would be legislators, and our CEO, the governor, the president. That yes, working together, sharing our resources in a very Christian way. We can do something about these things. And so those are the headwinds pushing back. And the fortunately for us today, as we know, and it would gain gale force winds in the 1930s with the New Deal. And that’s still part of the debate today. If you read The New York Times today, those issues are still there. What can we do together? What should we do as individuals, especially when you throw in corporations as individuals, as courts have said they are, it becomes complicated.
And that’s the world that Kate Barnard was living in at a time when women had that glass ceiling, not up here, you know, two feet off the ground. It was down inches from the ground. Women were supposed to stay home, keep, you know, keep their thoughts to themselves. The men were running this society. Men were in control. Men owned women was almost the attitude at the time. They were possessions and to be controlled and to fit this model. And here’s this bachelorette Kate Barnard, this Scots-Irish firebrand who believed in these things, who says, I’m not going to be quiet. I’m not going to stay under this glass ceiling. I’m going to burst through where I can, and I’m going to do what I can.
Thompson: A woman who had the physical stature of a twig and who constantly bumped up against these most powerful people and built such an important political coalition of power because of her work with the labor union that those politicians, those men, had to listen to her because she could go out on the circuit. She was such a good speaker; she could go out of the circuit, and she routinely would draw thousands of people. Up to 8–10,000 people would come to hear her speak. And this is an era, like you said, when women were expected to be cooking meals at home and to be married and with their husbands. And she, at an early age, says, I’m not getting married. I have too much important things to do. It’s—a husband’s going to slow me down. I’m going to devote my life to my work.
Blackburn: You know, in terms of the pantheon of my heroes, and I give a lot of speeches about leadership. And I always like to categorize that two ways. One is those who have faced challenges, and then those who have seized opportunities. In almost every case, it’s a combination of the two. Even Kate, facing all of these challenges, but she seized opportunities by joining forces with organized labor, with organized farmers, at the very time when we create a state. If she had been here 10 years earlier, 10 years later, probably wouldn’t have been the same story. But it’s the same with entrepreneurs who build our companies or build our communities. They’re seizing opportunities, but they’ve had the challenges of how to get the capital, how to find the workers, how to how to get cash flow. And those two stories really define my heroes, and Kate Barnard is up there at the very top with a few other heroes, and especially women who have faced that, like Clara Luper, whom we’ve talked about before; Alice Robertson, the first woman to be elected to Congress from Oklahoma, who is this, again, a hard-working woman who who stood up and broke the glass barriers. Wilma Mankiller...
Thompson: Who’s now on the back of a quarter.
Blackburn: ...and one of my heroes. I knew Wilma. But Angie Debo and, you know, these women would say, no, we’re not going to take that old traditional role and do what we’re told to do. We’re going to look for those opportunities. We’re going to deal with the challenges, and we’re going to make a difference.
Thompson: One of my favorite stories that Connie relays in the book is when Kate is on the circuit, right, campaigning for the Constitution in 1907 for it to pass. And she goes into eastern Oklahoma, and it’s a mining town. And, of course, miners were dying in the mines. The conditions were terrible. There was no regulation on any kind of worker safety or anything like that. And she was warned to not to speak out against this particular mine owner. She said things could get rough, and you could be in danger physically. And of course, she said, thank you very much, but I’m going to do what I want to do. And one of my favorite quotes from the entire book is what she says directly to this mine owner, to his face, you know, on the city street there, she says, “the diamonds you are wearing in your shirt front were bought with the blood of 15 men who were burned to death in a mine which you own because you would not spend the money to provide two entrances. You made their wives widows. You made their children orphans. You are responsible to Almighty God for the long, weary lives of poverty and ignorance which they face. And if the people of this state of Oklahoma will elect me to the office which I am seeking, I will change such conditions not only in your mine, but in all the others.” I mean, wow, what a powerful woman. I, you know, you often say, oh, I would have loved to have met this historical figure. I think I would have been intimidated by her.
Blackburn: I would have become one of her supporters. I say, what can I do to help? I’ve been going to some fundraisers lately, for women, and I’m just so impressed. And tears come to my eyes when I hear this kind of passion that they want to help and make a difference. And Kate is there. And I’ll never forget Betty Price, one of my dear friends and mentors, who was head of the Arts Council for many years, decided to do a fundraiser and cast a bench with a woman sitting on it for the State Capitol. For years, I walked by it every day going into the Capitol, and it’s Kate Barnard. You can sit by Kate Barnard and have your photograph taken. I’ve seen so many families, and especially young women. Young women need to go to the State Capitol. Where is that bench now? You know.
Thompson: It’s on the first floor in the east corridor, and I have a photo with my daughter sitting next to Kate Barnard.
Blackburn: That’s right, we have to teach, we have to teach all young people, male and female, but especially women who still face headwinds in many ways that males do not, that, you know, follow your passions, do what you do, learn to speak like that. That’s a very moving passage. Thank you for bringing it out of the book. I’ve going to go back and find it, mark it in my own book now.
Thompson: Well, Bob, let’s bring in Connie, and let’s have a conversation with her about Kate Barnard.
Blackburn: Very good. I’m looking forward to it.
Thompson: Well, I would like to welcome into our podcast Connie Cronley. Now, she is the author of three books of essays. Those books are Sometimes a Wheel Falls Off, Light and Variable, and Poke a Stick at It, and the co-author with the late Edward Perkins of Mr. Ambassador, Warrior for Peace. But the reason we’re having her on today is last year she published a book on Kate Barnard entitled A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard. And I just finished reading this book a few weeks ago, and I have to tell you, it is absolutely phenomenal. I enjoyed reading it. I felt like I learned so much more about Kate Barnard, and I’m just thrilled to have you on the podcast today, Connie.
Connie Cronley: I am honored to be invited, and I love the opportunity to talk about Kate.
Thompson: Well, wonderful, wonderful. Well, first of all, let’s just get into a little bit of your life and career. I’d like to know about your history as an author, and I know that you knew Ms. Angie Debo. Love to hear a little bit more about that also.
Cronley: I am from Oklahoma. I was born in a little town in northeast Oklahoma—Nowata, Oklahoma. And from the time I was a little girl, I always wanted to be a writer. And writing has been an important part of all of the jobs I’ve had in my life. And I think the greatest discovery of my life was learning to read. So I love books, and I love history. I was working at the University of Tulsa in the ’70s. I was in my 30s, and Dr. Angie Debo came to be the guest speaker. I had never heard of her. I didn’t know much about Oklahoma history, and I heard her speak that day. This tiny woman with a fluff of white hair, who could barely see over the podium she was so small. I was on the back row of the auditorium, and I was just riveted, just struck to my seat by the power of her talk about the necessity of truth and integrity and history. I was in my 30s. She was in her 80s. I wrote her. We got acquainted. We became good friends. She was my mentor until she died about 18 years later.
I visited her at her home in Marshall as often as I could, and we talked about writing, and we talked about her history books, and she showed me her notes and how she kept them. And she talked about Kate Barnard and how she had seen Kate speak, and what a power Kate had over an audience as an orator. And she had followed Kate’s career when she wrote her own book And Still the Waters Run. And she said I wish you would write the biography of Kate, and I’m sure she said that to other people because she really wanted Kate’s story told, and I said, “I will.” I made that vow. Okay, that was in the ’70s, and I started it right then. I started tracing Dr. Debo’s notes in the book, went to Washington, DC, to the National Archives, Library of Congress, and then to state museums and universities. And the good thing about starting it then was I got to meet people who knew Kate. This is an incredible opportunity when I look back, but then life got in the way. I put my notes away. I had by then nine bankers' boxes of paper notes.
Thompson: Wow.
Cronley: This was long before computers. And when I retired a few years ago, I got them out and said, now is the time to finish this project. So I went through them all again, brought myself up to the new information about Kate, and started writing it. So it has been a long time coming, this book, but it feels really good, Trait, to keep my promise to Dr. Debo and to myself.
Blackburn: Connie, before we start talking about Kate herself, and you’ve been talking about historiography and being inspired and meeting all of these people and gathering your ideas. As historians and writers, you know, we’re always working on the shoulders of somebody else. You obviously on the shoulders of Angie. With me, it’s Odie Faulk, and LeRoy Fischer, and Basil Berlin Chapman, and, you know, one of Angie’s good buddies up at OSU.
But when you started looking more into Kate’s story, I know there had been a couple of generations of historians who had pulled back certain parts of the curtain, never quite complete enough to get the kind of book that you have done. But I know that you use some of their work. They’re in your citations. You did a good job. Who were a few of those historians who probably did the best job of pulling back the curtains and would allow you to give this full-bodied approach?
Cronley: By far, it was Dr. Debo, because in And Still the Waters Run, she talks about the corruption of the county judges and the legal guardians. This is in Kate’s fight to protect Indian orphans of their property that was being stolen from them by what she determined was the conspiracy of graft. And Dr. Debo said, which she was researching, she was reading documents in the basement of courthouses, and the names she was reading there of people who had been crooked and illegal. She would go outside, and those names were in the local paper. They were still alive. So that was by far the premier of historic authority for me.
Thompson: Now, getting into Kate’s life, you know, I know that you were asked by Angie Debo to do this work, and you had made a promise. But what resonated with her most to you as you got into this research? I mean, obviously to do a book like this, there has to be a passion. So what resonated with you?
Cronley: I think when I look back at this, I really wanted to write the book when I started it in my 30s and was very disappointed that I couldn’t do that then. I left working in a university, and I wasn’t an academician anyway, but I never got a grant. So all of this was paid for by out of my pocket, and it became a passion project. When I started, I was in my 30s. I was writing about Kate when she was in her 30s, and I understood her energy, her passion. Dr. Debo said her compassion burned like a flame, and she was fiery. She’d never back down from a fight. She was convinced that if she told the truth with accuracy, people would see what she was doing and agree with her. And I felt just like that all my life.
Well, now I’m in my 70s, and I have seen some disappointment and failures and how people let you down. And so I had like an arc of understanding of Kate’s life because she was really let down in her life. So what I really, what resonated with me, with her, she was a woman of great moral courage, and she never compromised to her own detriment and made mistakes while she was too aggressive and outspoken and burned bridges while she was still on them, and I did all of that myself. So I understood her personality. And in my career, I often worked for people who didn’t have much of a voice of their own. For a while, I was, more like 15 years, I was director of a soup kitchen, so I worked with working poor and homeless people. I saw how her heart got engaged in that. Now, this is something interesting to me, too. When I talk to groups about Kate Barnard, I often begin by saying, how many of you have ever heard of Kate Barnard? And almost no hands go up. I talked to a Rotary group yesterday of 70. Three hands went up. One of them was from Magic City Books. She doesn’t count because she’s selling the books. One was Representative John Waldron, who was introducing me. He doesn’t count because he’s a history professor.
Thompson: I was going to say he’s a history teacher.
Cronley: Right, that’s why he doesn’t count! And then one other person. So the question is, two questions—why? And this is what people ask me back. Women, especially, are enraged. They say, how have we not known of her? How did we not know about this episode with corruption against the Indians? How do we not even know about Indian history? And I’m thinking, I don’t know. But one reason is this: I think what happened is the past, but history is what is getting written down. History is what gets written down. And the question then is who gets to write history? And often it’s the winners, and ultimately Kate was a loser of her biggest campaign.
Thompson: Yeah.
Cronley: And nobody was eager to tell that episode. And one time I was talking to a group, a few months ago, and a woman on the front row said, Kate Barnard was the first woman elected to state office in 1907. Do you know when the second woman was elected? And I didn’t, and she said 1976. I said, who was it? And she said, it was me. It was Norma Eagleton who was elected corporation commissioner. And Ms. Eagleton’s question was, do we think that one reason Oklahoma hasn’t lived up to its promise as a progressive state is because we have repressed women so much? And that’s a good question.
Thompson: Certainly a good question to ask. I want to get into her life a little bit, because what you do such a good job in the book is really getting to her personality and her motivations. And she was born in Nebraska in 1875. Her mother died when she was about two years old, and then her father makes their way down into Oklahoma. But her father is really an absent presence in his life. He’s always kind of trying to go out and get a new job and to make it, and he never really quite succeeds at it.
And she goes to become a teacher, and that doesn’t really stick. It doesn’t fit with her personality. She goes to secretarial school, which is really her gateway into politics. But when she’s working for the legislature, in the Territorial Legislature in the early 1900s, is when she kind of discovers this passion and this love of politics, and then she goes to work at the St. Louis, at the World’s Fair in St. Louis. And that’s when she really becomes exposed to the poverty that is in the world. And she really gets an eye-opening look at that, and that really spurs her. So, can you talk about, first of all, her physical stature? She is not a large woman, and then her passion that she develops.
Cronley: Trait, that is a great summary. Thank you. She said near the end of her career that her whole career was really focused on care of children. That’s what she cared about most. One of the most searing memories of her life was her mother’s burial when Kate was two on a snow-covered graveyard in Kirwin, Kansas. And so the image of winter with children resonates through a lot of her public speeches. And she grew up feeling like a half orphan, or an orphan, because her father was gone so often, and she was boarded out with strangers in Kansas.
So when she discovered progressive reform at the St. Louis World’s Fair, she discovered a way to rescue not just lost kittens or children, rescue and help the whole world. And she embraced it with both arms and her whole heart. She was, as you say, tiny. She was barely five feet tall and never weighed more than 95 pounds, never married, never had children of her own. But when she spoke, and she had this power over an audience, Dr. Debo said, that she has never seen before. She said FDR had it and Aimee Semple McPherson had it. People were just riveted to her. Dr. Debo heard her speak and said, reporters reported this, too. Kate would often raise one arm above her head, almost to emphasize her frailty and say, “As long as God lets me live,” And she repeated it like a mantra, “As long as God lets me live, I will fight for the children.” She was famous for saying, she dressed very plainly, wore no jewelry. She was famous for saying, “How can women wear diamonds when babies cry for bread?” Oh, so powerful!
Thompson: Absolutely. And you know, one of the things she also said was there can be no greater epitaph on a tombstone than “here lies one who protected helpless orphan children of his state.”
Cronley: Ah, well said, well said.
Blackburn: Connie, as, Oh, excuse me. Go ahead, Connie
Cronley: She campaigned on child labor. You mentioned that. I got myself sidetracked. She toured the mines, and the factories, and the warehouses from St. Louis farther east, and she saw what child labor was like, the children working there. And she came back to Oklahoma, and that’s how she began campaigning. This is long before women had the vote, but she was campaigning for representative to the Constitutional Convention. And her main platform was there would be no child labor. There will be laws prohibiting child labor in the new state of Oklahoma. And she told the audiences across the two territories, farmers, and miners, and laborers, she told them what she’d seen at those factories and mines where little children were down in the mines. She was very dramatic and religious. And she says “down, down, down in the inky depths where no sun shines and no flowers grow. That’s where the children work.” “If the Savior came back to earth today, what would he say to see that we coined wealth from our children’s lives?” One of the most powerful stories she told audiences was about touring a bottling factory. All girls were working there, little girls. And the floor walker was going up and down the aisles looking at the girls intently, and she asked him, why do you do that? And he said, “Oh, they’re bottling arsenic. When their lips turn blue, I take them outside for a breath of fresh air.” And she told her audiences these stories, and that she was determined that we would elect representatives and write laws that would make their lives better and their children’s lives better.
And they loved her for it. They loved her. They called her “Our Kate.” She was known as “the Good Angel” of Oklahoma, but she could be an avenging angel too, because her job was to inspect all of the charitable, all of the correctional institutions in the state, the hospitals, the orphanages, the city and county jails. And she went in with a vengeance, not asking that the patients and the prisoners be treated with care and compassion, but insisting on it. And she made a lot of waves. She made a lot of enemies by doing that.
Blackburn: Connie, but as we know in history, you know, we all walk onto a stage of history, and we might have passion for whatever we believe in, but oftentimes we don’t have a chance to make a difference because the times aren’t right. We don’t have the allies. We don’t have the networks. I think Kate had an advantage here. And I’d like you to comment about this relationship with Peter Hanraty, who was the labor leader in Oklahoma, a charismatic who probably identified with her through their religion, Catholicism. And he was a fiery orator himself. He was willing to fight, not compromise. He cared about labor, and the fact that labor was organizing in the 1890s, and suddenly, you have assets with these union workers who are willing to get actively involved in politics and trying to get government to have more programs to help people, as well as young people. And that relationship with Peter Hanraty would carry in through the Constitutional Convention. Talk a little bit about her comments or her friendship and alliance with Peter Hanraty.
Cronley: When Kate came back to Oklahoma Territory after St. Louis and the World’s Fair, she got involved with charity work first, and she got involved with as many unions as she could, as many unions she could. She was secretary. She was a member. Because she believed—something she’d learned in St. Louis— that unions, more than the government then, were friends of the working person for labor laws, for livable wages, for safe working conditions. And when she went to the Shawnee Convention, which she called the Working Man’s Convention, which was getting ready for the Constitutional Convention, that’s where she met big Pete Hanraty and other labor organizers, and men from the farmers bloc. And they organized. They selected a group of about four to go out campaigning across the state to elect people, elect men, of course, sympathetic to workers for the Constitutional Convention.
They were all Scots or Irish, and Kate was both. Her mother was Scots. She was proudest of her Irish ancestry, and these are who she went out campaigning with. She was very close to Pete Hanraty, and when she spoke at the Constitutional Convention, she had no official authority there except what she inserted herself to have, and then was determined to have more votes, more influence for votes than any men there. But when she spoke, Pete Hanraty escorted her to the podium not once, but twice, and that was making a big, sending a big message to the convention. Kate Barnard is a friend of labor. This very powerful, unifying the Farmer-Labor bloc at the Shawnee Convention was the determining factor in passing that progressive State Constitution. And when it was passed, you know this as a historian, all of the news of the nation, and it was all print, were converged in Guthrie. The eyes of the nation were to see what kind of state this would become. And the Constitutional, the Constitution was so progressive, the newsman declared it not just a new state, but a new kind of state, because here was a state that cared for the people, the working people, more than the corporations. It was the most progressive state in the Union. Now think of that. Progressive—Oklahoma. Two words we never put together today.
Thompson: Yeah, and in fact, William Howard Taft, who came and campaigned against the Constitution when it was going up for the vote, said it was a combination of bourbonism and despotism. So the Republicans didn’t quite think the same thing.
(laughter)
Thompson: But many who were there for the drafting and including Kate, thought it was the best thing that had been written since the Declaration of Independence.
Cronley: That’s right. That’s right. And one person who was there, who was the British ambassador, said it was the best constitution in the history of the world. I mean, wow, that’s a big praise for a little, a new little state. But we talked about her issues. The issue she carved out at statehood that she then campaigned for, because we should say the Constitution created an office for her: commissioner of Charities and Corrections, the only office that could be held by a woman. And the issue she carved then, to campaign for, to have laws written for and bills written for and pushed into law, brought national authorities to the new state to help draft those laws, were compulsory education, criminal justice reform, compassionate mental health care, labor laws.
And then her other issue, her downfall, with what was called the “Indian issue.” And Trait, if we look at the news today, those issues are still in our press, and we’re not doing very well with them in this state. So what it tells me is Kate started this work, but it’s not done yet. And so we all need to step up and help finish the work.
Thompson: And when you think about her, you know, this 95-pound woman. And I think one of the things that also I didn’t know about her before reading your book is that she suffered ill health most of her life, but she would go out and make dozens and dozens of speeches all through the summer and the fall to get ready for this vote. She would campaign for other, the gubernatorial candidates and people that she felt like would carry on this mission of social justice and that this director of Charities and Corrections, this was a position that other states did not have. We were unique in that this was something that we created that was one of her brainchilds to advocate for the poor and the downtrodden.
Cronley: That is an excellent point. It was going to be a commission. And then during the Constitutional Convention, she determined that it would be more effective if there was one commissioner because she said, in essence, committees don’t get a lot done, and they’re at the beck and call of other people. But a commissioner would have more authority and power. That’s what she wanted, and that’s what she got. And she did have a story, and she said, she was an avid Democrat, very loyal to the Democratic Party, but she said she was not appointed, and so she was not beholden to anybody. She was elected by the people directly, and that’s who she spoke for and spoke to.
Thompson: One of the quotes in your book that I just loved. She said, “I am, by temperament, not fitted for the slow and systematic way of doing things.
(laughter)
Thompson: I am too impulsive and too nervous to wait. I plunge in, demand, and make a rapid organization of all forces. This is my way of doing business, and it has proved very successful for me.”
But I think, as you mentioned, it also proved to be, when the legislature decided they were done with her, it proved to be her undoing.
Cronley: She did not compromise, and she did believe she was right, and she had the courage of her convictions and had huge political fights throughout her life, public fights on stages where she was debating people. The politics at the time was so bare-knuckled. There were fistfights in the streets. When the attorney in her office was filing suits to have the corrupt guardians removed from office and the Indian properties restored to them, gunshots were fired at her. He got into a fist fight in the courthouse. It was a very visceral, fiery time, and she never backed down. Pardon me. And she never backed down from any of that. It was an era that ethnicity was important, and the Irish were known probably as the fighting Irish. She would say publicly, I am Irish and love a good shindig.
(laughter)
Cronley: And this was despite her health, which was awful. She was both frail physically, and then I think she, I totally believe she drove herself to collapse. We might say—armchair psychology— was a little bipolar. She would work so frantically that she collapsed and then would have to be in her sick room for days. And then it became weeks, and then it became months. But it was not all psychological. Some of it might have been. But she had a prevailing disease that could not be diagnosed then, and it turned out to be the one that killed her. And a Tulsa doctor identifies that. It’s in my book. And he said today, this could be treated by cortisone. In her day, it was fatal. And I think that was another reason she was impatient, and she got angrier as she got older because she didn’t have long to live. Time was short, and she was not a patient woman
Blackburn: Connie, this is Bob. One thing we do know is that a lot of times people are known for the enemies they make, and of course, Kate had a long list of those. But one of her arch enemies at the Convention and for many years on the campaign trail would have been William “Alfalfa Bill” Murray. And at some points in their moving around the state, “Alfalfa Bill” would try to avoid Kate because, as an orator himself, he did not like to be whipped by this 95 year-old-woman, or 95-pound woman, on a stage in front of the males with toxic masculinity, kind of the law of the land. And he was very a toxic, masculine kind of guy himself. And he would try to avoid Kate, but they just disagreed, and she would not back down a little bit, and he could be very intimidating himself. But she never backed down, and he tried to avoid her when he could.
Cronley: They clashed monumentally, and their biggest clash when he was speaker of the House was over her bill for compulsory education. He was opposed to compulsory education, and public education is the bedrock, I think, of American civilization. And she was shocked and stunned that anybody couldn’t see the importance of children having an education, and the bill didn’t get through the first legislature. It had to go to the second legislature. And we look back now, and there were two issues. Some people said we don’t want the state telling us how to raise and educate our children. And the other issue were the farmers who said, we need the children out in the fields, not in school. And the whole point the bills that finally got passed was requiring children under the age of 12 or 16 to spend three months a year in school. Only three months.
Blackburn: Between picking the cotton and planning the cotton, they could go to school.
Cronley: They could go to school that little window of time. But you’re right. She loved, she didn’t mind clashing. She sort of loved clashing with “Alfalfa Bill” Murray. And to make it worse, whenever she won one of those, she just crowed and boasted about it. She wrote somebody, one of her national colleagues, about winning some big campaign or debate against him. And as we say around here, Bill Murray was skinned and salted.
Thompson: Now, Thomas Gore, who is the United States senator from Oklahoma, gets in touch with Kate and alerts her to the problem of Native American orphans who were being appointed guardians and basically their lands, their inheritances were being stripped from them by these white guardians that were being appointed. And so she takes that on in a crusade. And even after she’s out of office in 1915, she continues trying to bring awareness to this problem. But really, this is the issue that, you know, the legislature for a while, Governor Cruce talked about cutting, getting rid of the Department of Charities and Corrections, and the legislature cut her budget in half, which basically meant she had to get rid of staff, and she couldn’t fulfill her job duties the way she had been doing before.
And it was all because she was poking at some very, very powerful people and the schemes and the plots that they were using to basically strip these Native American children of their inheritances. And that proved to be, you know, basically the end of her influence in the state. So we talk about that for just a little bit?
Cronley: She was so popular, the most popular person of either sex from the state, and one of the most popular women in the nation, and so powerful. She became so powerful in the state. Judge Lindsey from Colorado, who was the father of the juvenile justice system, the juvenile court, came to help her with some of her bills. And he recognized early on the power she had and said because of that, she was a marked woman. Well she was called “the Good Angel of Oklahoma,” “the Joan of Arc of Oklahoma” for all the help she was giving to the prisoners, the mental patients, the children, until she took on what was called the “Indian question.” And you’re right. Thomas Gore wrote her a letter in 1908 asking her to intercede in this, and she said she was busy with other things then. And it was, at the time, it was two heroic battles against the two state mental hospitals. But by 1910, that was cleared enough, she took them on. And she said, I don’t know anything about Indians. And she didn’t. She was from the west side of the state, and most of these problems were in the east part of the state, had been Indian Territory, and her first authority was for the orphans or the Indians under the age of 18 who had property, who were being victimized, and their property stolen. And the properties were being stolen, by—this just land, and mineral rights, and timber, and then oil.
In eastern Oklahoma, 60,000 Indian children owned one-third of the property. It was valued in today’s money of $4,650,000,000. All of this money. And so Kate stepped in and began pressing charges to have the guardians removed and protect the children. They were being embezzled. The deeds were being forged. There were bogus marriages, kidnappings, and murder. This is how the property was being stolen. But there was so much money and so many greedy hands in the till. Crooked attorneys, crooked county judges, businessmen, ordinary citizens, oilmen that today we identify as major philanthropists. And here stood Kate between all of this money and the people who wanted some of it. And then the popular saying was, “Now she has stopped preaching and started meddling.” She had to go.
Thompson: There’s a line in your book that somebody remarked that “every grafter in Oklahoma hates her, like the devil hates holy water.”
(laughs)
Cronley: Yeah, a reporter wrote that. They did. And it became so widespread, and also the interest, the passion for progressive reform was starting to fade. For one thing, we wanted to be compassionate. We wanted modern jails and hospitals, but it was expensive. But there was a drought, and there was a depression, and people resented paying taxes to pay salaries for politicians, and they wanted the money. They wanted the Indian land to be taxed to build schools, streets. But mostly, they wanted it for their own fortunes, and she was in the way. She was absolutely in the way. And then the whole fourth legislature got involved, and they wanted to eliminate her office, as you said. But they couldn’t because it was created in the Constitution. But what they could do was cut her appropriations, and they did. And it ruined her department, and her health, and her life. And she left office and lived a recluse until she died in 1930.
But she never gave up her fighting Irish spirit. And even before she died, she vowed to regain her health, get her strength back, and run for US office.
Blackburn: Kate, or Connie, have you ever walked around Fairlawn Cemetery looking for her little headstone? I have. And some elected officials, some women, my wife’s a former legislator, and they were determined to try to raise money at some point to do a more fitting monument other than just a little headstone with her name.
Cronley: That is such a good question. When I give talks to people, and they, especially women, and they say, what can we do now that we do know about Kate? How can we recognize her? How can we honor her? Can we have a Kate Barnard State Day? Can we have scholarships in her work? Can we have a better monument for her? After she died, her grave wasn’t even marked for 50 years. I have been— and then a civic group got this little gravestone on it. I have been there looking for it, and I couldn’t find it. So it would be wonderful if we had ways to honor her today, starting with a better monument, but something else to encourage young people today to step forward and have the moral courage of Kate Barnard would be great. All of that. Anything would be great. Now that we know about her. Let’s don’t forget her again.
Blackburn: Well, a good step to accomplishing that is your book. Thank you for writing that. Thank you for finally fulfilling a pledge you made. I know the satisfaction of that, and it will raise awareness of Kate. And as long as all of us keep talking about her and her courage and how we should use her values and her way of looking at the world to improve quality of life for everybody. So thank you for that project.
Cronley: Gentleman, thank you so much for talking to me today. And thank you for loving Kate as much as I do, and for loving history, and Oklahoma.
Thompson: And Connie, I want to mention. Connie, I want to mention before we go that your book, we awarded, the Oklahoma Historical Society, awarded you the Book of the Year award for this wonderful book and tell people where they can find it.
Cronley: That was such a thrill to me to get that award, especially because I’m not a professional historian. My background is really journalism. The book is available at bookstores, stores, especially independent bookstores and online, Amazon.com. And I think it’s a readable book, not a long book. One of the questions I’m often asked is when will there be a movie? Because her life is so dramatic and so cinematic. It’s a paperback book, so it’s not overly expensive, and I know a number of people buy it and say I’m giving this to my daughter or my granddaughter. It’s not just for women; it is for historians and for community-minded people. But the title is A Life on Fire. And what I hope is Kate’s story will ignite a little spark in all of us, and we can be a good fire for the issues that she started that are still undone.
Thompson: Well, I can vouch for the fact that it is an incredibly compelling read. I flew right through it, and that’s even with me underlining a lot of passages throughout it. And so, Connie, thank you so much for being on with us today, and thank you for continuing to talk about Kate’s legacy.
Cronley: Thank you both. Bye-bye.
Thompson: Bye-bye.
Blackburn: Goodbye.
Thompson: Well, Bob, I have enjoyed this conversation with you and with Connie today. I’ve learned a lot. I loved Kate Barnard coming into this conversation, and I feel so much of a connection with her even more coming out of this, and I’m glad that we’re able to tell her story here, and I hope a lot of people will listen to it.
Blackburn: Well, I hope so, Trait. And, you know, everyone needs to be aware of their history and learn the lessons from lives such as Kate’s, and, in many ways, it’s not just giving us a guidepost to go forward, but it’s really encouraging us, giving us hope that despite all the problems we see and especially with entertainment, social media and everything now, we get this cacophony of doom and gloom, and oh we’re split, we’re never; well, these lessons in history show us that there is hope. That if we stand up, do what we feel is right, and use those values of people like Kate Barnard, we can overcome these challenges and we can get better, and we can make progress. And as a historian that studied our history intensively for years, we are making progress today. So it gives me hope for the future, and it’s given me lessons in life that if you if you follow those values and you take care of those around you, things will get better.
Thompson: Couldn’t have said it better myself. Bob, I look forward to talking to you on our next podcast.
Blackburn: Thank you.
Thompson: You’ve been listening to A Very OK Podcast, hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org, and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
(upbeat music playing)
