Kate Richards O'Hare
Kate Richards O'Hare was an American socialist and reformer born on March 26, 1877, in Ottawa County, Kansas. Initially a teacher, she became an apprentice machinist and joined the International Order of Machinists union. O'Hare's disillusionment with traditional social reform led her to embrace socialism, joining the Socialist Labor Party in 1899 and later the Socialist Party of America. She became an active speaker and advocate for socialist philosophy, running for Congress in 1910 and representing her party at the Second International in London in 1913.
A prominent antiwar activist during World War I, O'Hare was arrested in 1917 under the Federal Espionage Act and served time in prison, where she published several works. After her release, she continued her activism, notably organizing the Children's Crusade in 1922. O'Hare also contributed to prison reform and was involved with the Llano Cooperative Colony and Commonwealth College. She published a notable socialist novel, "What Happened to Dan?" in 1904, and later remarried. O'Hare passed away on January 10, 1948, in Benicia, California, leaving a legacy as a dedicated advocate for socialism and social justice.
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Subject Terms
Kate Richards O'Hare
Activist
- Born: March 26, 1876
- Birthplace: Near Ada, Ottawa County, Kansas
- Died: January 10, 1948
- Place of death: Benicia, California
Biography
American socialist and reformer Kate Richards O’Hare (née Carrie Kathleen Richards) was born near the city of Ada in Ottawa County, Kansas, on March 26, 1877. She taught briefly at a rural school after studying education at a teachers’ college in Nebraska. Following this, she moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where she worked as an apprentice machinist with her father. She joined the International Order of Machinists union, and in her spare time she performed social work and studied religion.
O’Hare gradually became disillusioned by the apparent ineffectiveness of social reform measures, and she began to study works by radical authors and thinkers such as Ignatius Donnelly and Marry Harris Jones. She decided to convert to socialism, and in 1899, she joined the Socialist Labor Party. In 1901, she allied herself with the less radical Socialist Party of America. She attended the International School of Social Economy in Girard, Kansas, where she met Francis P. O’Hare. They were married in 1902. Together they spent fifteen years traveling and lecturing on the benefits of socialist philosophy. In 1910, O’Hare ran for a congressional seat in Kansas on the Socialist ballot, and in 1913 she attended the Second International in London as a representative of the Socialist Party. She was opposed to U.S. involvement in World War I, and in 1917 she went on a coast-to-coast speaking tour to express her antiwar sentiment.
In July, 1917, O’Hare was arrested under the new Federal Espionage Act; following her conviction, she was imprisoned in the Missouri State Penitentiary in April, 1919. While serving her sentence, she published Kate O’Hare’s Prison Letters (1919) and In Prison (1920). Her sentence was commuted in 1920, and she later received a full pardon from President Calvin Coolidge. Following her release, she campaigned in support of socialist Eugene V. Debs, who was running for the presidency.
O’Hare organized the Children’s Crusade in 1922; it involved a protest march on Washington, D.C., by the children of imprisoned antiwar activists. She and her husband joined the Llano Cooperative Colony, a utopian community near Leesville, Louisiana, in 1923. They resumed publication of the newspaper they had started in 1912. Originally named the National Rip- Saw, the paper was now called the American Vanguard. They also helped found Commonwealth College; O’Hare continued to teach there for two years after its move to Mena, Arkansas in 1926.
After 1924, O’Hare began to focus her attention on prison reform, and she spent two years conducting a survey of questionable prison labor practices. She married the lawyer Charles C. Cunningham in 1928 following her divorce. She contributed to Upton Sinclair’s unsuccessful campaign for the governorship of California, and she worked as the assistant director of the California Department of Penology from 1939 to 1940.
O’Hare’s popular socialist novel What Happened to Dan? was published in 1904. It was expanded and republished in 1911 as The Sorrows of Cupid. O’Hare died in Benicia, California, on January 10, 1948.