Frances F. Threadgill | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Frances Falwell September 22, 1867 Memphis, Tennessee |
| Died | February 17, 1941 (aged 73) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Educator, Club Woman |
| Spouse | John Threadgill (m. 1892–1915) |
| Children | 2 |
Frances Falwell Threadgill (1867-1941) was the first president of the Oklahoma State Federation of Women's Clubs.
Threadgill née Falwell was born on September 22, 1867, in Memphis, Tennessee. She attended the Peabody Normal School in Nashville, graduating in 1881. She taught school in Memphis and then moved to Taylor, Texas, teaching there briefly until 1892. The same year she married Dr. John Threadgill, with whom she had two children. [1]
The Threadgills moved Oklahoma. There she became involved with the Federation of Women's Clubs for Oklahoma and Indian Territories. In 1902 she led a campaign to place kindergartens in the public school system. [2] From 1904 to 1906, serving on the Federation's legislative committee, she campaigned to include legislation regarding regulation of child labor, compulsory education, and the establishment of juvenile courts and a reform school. [1] [2]
In 1908 the Federation of Women's Clubs for Oklahoma and Indian Territories and the Federation of Women's Clubs of Indian Territory merged to become the Oklahoma State Federation of Women's Clubs and Threadgill served as its first president. [3]
In 1909 the Frances F. Threadgill Education Loan Fund was established by the Oklahoma State Federation of Women's Clubs. [3]
From 1910 to 1912 Threadgill served as the treasurer of the national organization the General Federation of Women's Clubs of which the Oklahoma State Federation of Women's Clubs was a member. She also worked to gain suffrage for Oklahoma women. [1]
In 1934 Threadgill was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. [2]
Threadgill died on February 17, 1941, in Oklahoma City. [1]
Wilma Pearl Mankiller was a Native American activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, she lived on her family's allotment in Adair County, Oklahoma, until the age of 11, when her family relocated to San Francisco as part of a federal government program to urbanize Native Americans. After high school, she married a well-to-do Ecuadorian and raised two daughters. Inspired by the social and political movements of the 1960s, Mankiller became involved in the Occupation of Alcatraz and later participated in the land and compensation struggles with the Pit River Tribe. For five years in the early 1970s, she was employed as a social worker, focusing mainly on children's issues.
The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the Woman's Era Club of Boston, and the Colored Women's League of Washington, DC, at the call of Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin. From 1896 to 1904 it was known as the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). It adopted the motto "Lifting as we climb", to demonstrate to "an ignorant and suspicious world that our aims and interests are identical with those of all good aspiring women." When incorporated in 1904, NACW became known as the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC).
The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890 during the Progressive Movement, is a federation of over 3,000 women's clubs in the United States which promote civic improvements through volunteer service. Many of its activities and service projects are done independently by local clubs through their communities or GFWC's national partnerships. GFWC maintains nearly 70,000 members throughout the United States and internationally. GFWC remains one of the world's largest and oldest nonpartisan, nondenominational, women's volunteer service organizations. The GFWC headquarters is located in Washington, D.C.
Bacone College, formerly Bacone Indian University, is a private tribal college in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Founded in 1880 as the Indian University by missionary Almon C. Bacone, it was originally affiliated with the mission arm of what is now American Baptist Churches USA. Renamed as Bacone College in the early 20th century, it is the oldest continuously operated institution of higher education in Oklahoma. The liberal arts college has had strong historic ties to several tribal nations, including the Muscogee and Cherokee. The Bacone College Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Muskogee County, Oklahoma since 2014.
Dennis Wolf Bushyhead was a leader in the Cherokee Nation after they had removed to Indian Territory. Born into the Wolf Clan, he was elected as Principal Chief, serving two terms, from 1879 to 1887.
Roberta Lawson was a Lenape-Scots-Irish activist, community organizer, and musician. During World War I, she was the head of the Women's Division of the Oklahoma Council of Defense. She was president of the Oklahoma State Federation of Women's Clubs, which organized to support community welfare and educational goals. As music chairman of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, in 1926 she wrote Indian Music Programs for clubs and special days of celebration. In 1935 she was elected president of the General Federation, and served a three-year term leading its two million members to work toward goals of "uniform marriage and divorce laws, birth control, and civic service."
Mary Frances Thompson Fisher, best known as Te Ata, was an actress and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation known for telling Native American stories. She performed as a representative of Native Americans at state dinners before President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1957 and was named Oklahoma's first State Treasure in 1987.
Jessie Olive Thatcher Bost She was the first female graduate of Oklahoma State University. Bost was born in Guthrie Center, Iowa, Her family moved to Stillwater in 1891, then part of Oklahoma Territory, and she enrolled in a university, then known as Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) College, when it opened later that year. She graduated in 1897, alongside two male students in the university's second graduating class. After graduation, Bost worked as a public school teacher in Stillwater. Bost remained involved with the university and became the first president of its Alumni Association in 1902 and the Half-Century Club in 1954. The university named its first female dormitory "Jessie Thatcher Hall for Bost when it opened in 1925.
Della Cheryl Warrior is the first and only woman to date to serve as the chairperson and chief executive officer for the Otoe-Missouria Tribe. She later served at the president of the Institute of American Indian Arts, finding a permanent home for the institution as well as helping to raise over one hundred million dollars for the institution over a twelve-year period. Warrior was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 2007.
Zelia N. Breaux was an American music instructor and musician who played the trumpet, violin and piano. She organized the first music department at Langston University in Oklahoma and the school's first orchestra. As the Supervisor of Music for the segregated African American schools in Oklahoma City, Breaux organized bands, choral groups and orchestras, establishing a music teacher in each school in the district. She had a wide influence on many musicians including Charlie Christian and Jimmy Rushing, as well as novelist Ralph Ellison. Breaux was the first woman president of the Oklahoma Association of Negro Teachers and was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma YWCA Hall of Fame, Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Bandmasters Association Hall of Fame. The Oklahoma City/County Historical Society made a posthumous presentation of its Pathmaker Award to Breaux in 2017.
Czarina Conlan (1871-1958) was a Choctaw-Chickasaw archivist and museum curator. She worked at the Oklahoma Historical Society museum for 24 years. She founded the first woman's club in Indian Territory and served as the chair of the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Committee of the Oklahoma State Federation of Women's Clubs for 12 years. She was the first woman elected to serve on a school board in the state. Although the Attorney General of Oklahoma ruled she could not serve, she defied the order and completed a two-year term on the Lindsay School Board.
Lilah Denton Lindsey was a Native American philanthropist, civic leader, women's community organizer, temperance worker, and teacher. She was the first Muscogee woman to earn a college degree. She led numerous civic organizations and served as president of the Indian Territory Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
Drusilla Dunjee Houston was an American writer, historian, educator, journalist, musician, and screenwriter from West Virginia.
Bess Truitt (1884–1972) served as the Oklahoma Poet Laureate from 1945 to 1946. Since no poet laureate was appointed directly after her, Truitt also served as poet laureate emeritus from 1946 to 1963.
The Federation of Women's Clubs for Oklahoma and Indian Territories was formed in May, 1898. The motto selected for the organization was "Kindliness and Helpfulness". The first president was Sophia Julia Coleman Douglas.
Sophia Julia Coleman Douglas (1851–1902) was the founder and first president of the Federation of Women's Clubs for Oklahoma and Indian Territories. She served as principal of Oklahoma City High School before statehood.
Joseph Bradfield Thoburn was an educator, civic leader, author, and historian.
Carolyn T. Foreman, was a noted Oklahoma historian. Born in Illinois, she moved to the city of Muskogee with her widowed father, John R. Thomas, a former congressman for Illinois in the 1880s, and politician, and who served as a federal judge after Oklahoma became a state in 1907. After marrying Grant Foreman in 1905, a lawyer and partner of her father, she became fascinated with the history of Oklahoma. After her father's murder in 1914, she and Grant closed the legal partnership and spent full time on historical research and writing. Grant died in 1953, but despite her own declining health, Foreman continued her historical work until her own death in 1967.
Judith Ann Carter Horton was an educator, librarian, and community leader who founded the first public library for African Americans in Oklahoma.
Maude Brockway was an American teacher, milliner, and activist. She was born in Arkansas in 1876 and moved to Indian Territory after completing her education at Arkansas Baptist College. Initially, she worked as a teacher around Ardmore, Chickasaw Nation and then opened a hat-making business. In 1910, she moved to Oklahoma City and became involved in the Black Clubwomen's Movement. She was one of the founders of the state affiliate, Oklahoma Federation of Colored Women's Clubs and city chapter, Oklahoma City Federation of Colored Women's Clubs of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. She served as president of the city chapter from 1925 to 1950 and of the state federation from 1936 to 1940, as well as holding offices in the national organization.