A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard by Connie Cronley

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard by Connie Cronley Michelle M. Martin A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard. By Connie Cronley. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2021. ix + 295 pp. Illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, index. $26.95 paper. The American Progressive Era created unlikely heroes and heroines of men and women who sought to create a better world for those deemed less fortunate. Catherine “Kate” Barnard (1875–1930) ignited the Oklahoma political landscape in the early twentieth century with her fiery determination to protect the underrepresented, speak for the voiceless, and elevate the downtrodden. After serving in a clerical position for the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature, Barnard was selected to represent the territory as a hostess at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. While there she met social reformer Jane Addams and experienced slum life firsthand. When Barnard returned to Oklahoma, she embarked upon a career of charity work and prison and work reform. She was twice elected to serve as the commissioner of charities and corrections, the first woman to be elected to statewide office in Oklahoma. As charities and corrections commissioner, Barnard worked to improve conditions in Oklahoma’s prisons and alleviate poverty and suffering across the state. When she took up the plight of protecting Indigenous orphans, and their allotment lands and natural resources, from unscrupulous guardians, her political career came to a crashing halt. Over the course of fourteen engagingly written chapters, Connie Cronley traces the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of Barnard. The strength of Cronley’s work lies in her use of Barnard’s personal papers, speeches, and newspaper accounts of her brief yet impactful career in Oklahoma politics and social work. She weaves a story worthy of a Hollywood [End Page 364] biopic that places the reader in the trenches with Barnard as she dueled with politicians, business interests, and unscrupulous characters who profited at the expense of others. Cronley highlights Barnard’s work to protect Oklahoma’s Indigenous minors and those deemed incompetent to handle their own financial affairs. Cronley casts Barnard as the conscience of the fledgling state, battling the forces of political networks of men hellbent on maintaining their own power and lining their pockets. Just as compelling and heartrending is Cronley’s retelling of Barnard’s downfall (at the hands of her political enemies and due to her own relentless pursuit of justice for Indigenous minors) and later years spent in ill health and near obscurity. After reading Cronley’s account of Barnard’s downward spiral, one can picture a weary, worn woman fighting to protect the voiceless while holding body and soul together by a thread. While Cronley’s work is authoritatively researched and masterfully written, her analysis of Kate Barnard’s life and career could have been placed into a wider discussion of women’s social activism and labor organizing in Oklahoma and neighboring Kansas. This analysis would have helped Cronley trace Barnard’s influence on later generations of social reformers in the Great Plains. For readers not acquainted with Barnard’s life, Cronley’s biography is an excellent starting point. Her work dovetails with Lynn Musslewhite and Suzanne Jones Crawford’s One Woman’s Political Journey: Kate Barnard and Social Reform, 1875–1930. Michelle M. Martin Assistant Professor of History, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, OK Copyright © 2023 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln