Kate Barnard

Catherine Ann "Kate" Barnard (May 23, 1875 – February 23, 1930) was the first woman to be elected as a state official in Oklahoma, and the second woman to be elected to a statewide public office in the United States, in 1907. She served as the first Oklahoma Commissioner of Charities and Corrections for two four year terms (this position was the only one that the 1907 Oklahoma State Constitution permitted a woman to hold).

Before being elected to office, Barnard had worked as a teacher and in clerical patronage positions in the territorial government. She was also heavily involved in charity work.

Barnard was born in Geneva, Nebraska, on May 23, 1875, to John P. and Rachel Sheill Barnard. 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. 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.

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.

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