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O'Hare, Kathleen (audio interview #1 of 1)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - One long interview with Kathleen O'Hare, the daughter of Kate Richards O'Hare was conducted by Meredith Tax. The circumstances of the interview are unknown. Tax gave the interview to the Feminism History Research Project. The interview focuses mainly on O'Hare's famous socialist mother, but also provides insights into the family history and family relationships.
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- 2021-02-23
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- *** File: refkohare1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-6:17)... According to O'Hare, there were two separate wings of the SP, those who resided in the Midwest and those in the east. The former were typically natives of Germany with backgrounds as business owners and artisans. They settled in cities like Milwaukee, St. Louis and Chicago. Socialists in St. Louis subscribed to the Fabian philosophy, which advocated peaceful actions rather than violence to enact change. O'Hare remembers listening to her mother, Kate Richards O'Hare, complain about socialists in New York, who were "left of center" and generally more radical in their views and actions. Her mother was very close to Eugene V. Debs and discouraged him from running for office because she felt the New York socialists were using him. O'Hare describes Debs as a "very simple, warmhearted, genuine and loving person." (6:17-7:42)... O'Hare recalls a story Eugene V. Debs told her about his experience running into J.P. Morgan during his travels. Morgan was rarely photographed because he was extremely insecure about the size and appearance of his nose. (7:42-9:11)... Although O'Hare's parents knew and had dealings with Mother Jones, she was not a family friend. O'Hare believes that her parents "were too prim and proper" to socialize with her. (9:11-11:56)... While accompanying her mother on a speaking tour in France, O'Hare was introduced to a man at a dinner party who confided that he was following Kate Richards O'Hare during her speaking campaign in an attempt to gather personal information on her. He admitted that he did not agree with her political opinions and although she was not a beautiful woman, he found her fascinating and had developed a crush on her. He had no idea O'Hare was the daughter of this famous socialist, but felt compelled to talk to her because "she looked so much like her!" (11:56-14:55)... O'Hare reiterates that the basic differences between the eastern and western socialists was a matter of politics. She discusses the German culture that developed in St. Louis as a result of the large population of German immigrants. (14:55-15:41)... While living in St. Louis, O'Hare did not have any contact with the WTUL. However, the WTUL and the radicals in the city collaborated in many respects because they held common ground on many social and labor issues. (15:41-21:56)... When she was twelve years old, O'Hare went to New York to spend the summer with family friends. There, she met Emma Goldman's niece, Stella Valentine. O'Hare knew that she would have high regard for Goldman even before they met because of her positive experience with Valentine. By the time O'Hare returned to St. Louis, her mother was serving a prison sentence. Goldman was sent to the same prison as O'Hare and the two became fast friends. They had great respect for each other even though they did not share the same political ideology. After Goldman was released from prison, she moved to St. Louis and lived next door to O'Hare and her family. O'Hare describes her as a "sincere and honest person" who was not afraid to speak her mind with great emotion. (21:56-27:57)... Even though they were liberal people, divorce among socialists was a serious matter and something they avoided. O'Hare's mother was unhappy in her marriage for many years and wanted to divorce her father but because of her background she postponed it for a good ten years. O'Hare believes that her mother stayed in the marriage for the sake of her children and because "she didn't want the disgrace." When O'Hare's parents did finally divorce, they were much happier and remarried people who were better suited for them. O'Hare describes her father as a "first-class" brain and her mother as a "second-class" brain. Her father was a skilled mathematician with great imagination and creativity. He invented the first bookkeeping calculator with a memory that completed the functions of addition, subtraction and multiplication. (27:57-33:10)... O'Hare's father loved her mother with great intensity; her mother, in turn, had "great, general warmth, but didn't show it as much." O'Hare always felt love for and received it from her father, but not her mother who made the children feel as if the were secondary. She was not prepared to make the kinds of sacrifices that most mothers are willing to make for their children. Having lost his own mother, O'Hare's father wanted her to devote most of her time to the children. O'Hare's mother had a different idea of motherhood and spent two or three months at a time away from home lecturing. Initially O'Hare's grandmother took care of them, but after she left her paternal aunt moved in and she treated them horribly. (33:10-36:47)... O'Hare's parents were in love when they married. The problems in their marriage began after the success of her mother's first lecture. With little concern of how it might affect her, O'Hare's mother once told her that she was not willing to stay home and dedicate herself to home and hearth. At a very young age, O'Hare decided that she and her mother could be very good companions, but she always felt that her mother was basically demanding so that she be able to be proud of her children. She wanted O'Hare to have a career, which she didn't want. By contrast, her father wanted her to do whatever she desired and he believed that women were just as intelligent and capable as men. He advised his daughter to give her husband "the feeling that he is supporting her and to let him be the head of the house." (36:47-43:11)... After she divorced O'Hare's father, her mother married Charles Cunningham, who O'Hare lovingly referred to as "major." Although he was an intellect and a realist, he was neither radical nor a socialist. O'Hare's mother had great respect for him and "catered to certain whims of his," which was sort of out of her character. He was a liberal southerner and had many friends who worked with the Liberian Council. He did not believe that Blacks were inferior to Whites and was accepting of miscegenation. (43:11-46:08)... O'Hare could not recall more than a few, if any, Blacks in the SP. However, the SP and the Urban League collaborated on certain efforts. She recalls when one of their Black associates met with President Warren Harding during which he called her a "nigger" when she disagreed with him. (46:08-46:28)... The interview ends just as O'Hare is discussing the position of women in the SP. End of tape. *** File: refkohare2.mp3 (0:00-2:28)... O'Hare believes that the average woman in the SP was not particularly active. A large number of members in the SP were married couples. Girls were active in the YPSL and helped planned the various activities sponsored by the group. Women also helped plan lectures and social events, as well as prepared the food for those events. (2:28-6:40)... The encampments organized by the SP brought in large numbers of people from as far away as sixty miles, many of who traveled by horse and wagon. There were several speakers who lectured at these events. The audience members ranged from farmers to politicians. The farmers were not viewed negatively in their community for being socialists as long as they were "neighborly and good citizens." The encampments usually took place in Kansas and Oklahoma while these areas were considered Indian territory and after they became states. (6:40-8:00)... O'Hare's mother wrote a piece on the conditions facing Indians and how they were being taken advantage of by the American people. During one of the SP encampments in Cherokee territory, her father took several photographs of Indians in attendance. (8:00-14:46)... O'Hare's grandfather purchased an Indian allotment in Oklahoma even though Indians were not permitted to sell their allotments. He built a small house on the land and was allowed to keep the allotment when Oklahoma became a state. O'Hare's mother worked as long as possible while she was pregnant with O'Hare. As her delivery date approached, she went to her parent's ranch. O'Hare lived with her grandparents until she was two. During that period, her mother continued to lecture all over the country. O'Hare's father was very bothered that he and his wife were not raising their children. When O'Hare was two, her grandparents sold their ranch and moved to Kansas City, where her parents were already living. They then moved to Fort Dodge where other Civil War veterans resided. (14:46-17:25)... O'Hare lived in St. Louis, Missouri from the age of four to ten. In 1916, her mother was arrested and during her appeal, the family to Florida, where they lived for about a year. Her father taught mathematics at a small college and her mother continued to travel the country lecturing. When her mother's appeal was denied, her parents returned to St. Louis and the family temporarily scattered. O'Hare and her siblings stayed in Memphis, Tennessee with family friends for a year and then she spent a summer in New York. Her family then reunited in St. Louis. (17:25-26:07)... Following her mother's arrest, the SP established the Kate Richards O'Hare Defense Fund. She continued to travel the country lecturing while she appealed her case. When the appeal was rejected, she was sentenced to prison. O'Hare's father worked diligently to get her released; he believed that the appeal was denied because she "added fuel to the fire" during a speech in Montana. She allegedly had said that "anyone who volunteered for the army was only fit for cannon fodder and fertilizer." O'Hare adamantly denies that her mother ever used these words when she made anti-war statements. (26:07-29:35)... O'Hare's mother spent fourteen months in prison, during which time she convinced the chaplain to smuggle letters out to her husband. Emma Goldman was imprisoned shortly after O'Hare's mother and the two became close companions while they were in prison. O'Hare's mother had great influence over prison policies and was able to get certain amenities for herself and the other inmates. Her wealthy friends, like the Colgates, sent cartons of hygienic products to the inmates. O'Hare's mother became interested in prison reform while serving her sentence. (29:35-34:17)... After O'Hare's mother was released from prison, they moved to Kansas City and her parents revived the Ripsaw with the assistance of publisher Emmanuel Haldeman Julius who was married to Jane Addams' niece. O'Hare's father went to work for Julius as an efficiency expert and pared down production of the little Blue Books in order to reduce the sale price from .25 to .05/book. (34:17-35:48)... Reformers and club women were interested in the prison reform campaign organized by O'Hare's mother. Their wealth and position in society was powerful in exerting pressure among their peers to contribute to prison reform efforts. Although they were generally not socialists, they held common ground with O'Hare's mother on social and reform movements. (35:48-41:53)... O'Hare's mother spent two or three months at a time traveling the country lecturing and attending meetings with socialists and activists. She usually traveled to her destinations by train and stayed in a hotel unless she was near a close friend. Her lectures lasted approximately two hours after which she took questions from the audience. She was extremely intuitive about her audience's interests and fine tuned her lectures to appeal to their issues. Whenever she felt like she was losing her audience, she told a humorous story to get their attention. Although admission to her lectures was free, a collection hat was passed around for contributions. Socialist literature was provided at these lectures, some of which was supplied by O'Hare's mother. (41:53-46:24)... O'Hare's mother was friendly with the other women who lectured for the SP. She describes her as the "glamour girl" in the party " who could afford to be nice to the other speakers." Women whose level of activism paralleled her mother's were Jane Addams and Carrie Chapman Catt. For the most part, however, O'Hare's mother had more of a connection with the men in the movement. Although she collaborated with women, she did not have a close friend with whom she spent a great deal of time or confided. End of tape. *** File: refkohare3.mp3 (0:00-1:53)... The interview begins in the middle of a conversation regarding a scandal involving an unknown woman and Eugene V. Debs. (1:53-5:52)... O'Hare's mother was the oldest of three girls. Her sisters were physically attractive whereas she was a "long, stringy, sunburned, plain girl." Growing up on a ranch, all three were tomboys. As her sisters blossomed into beautiful women, O'Hare thinks that her mother suffered from an ugly duckling complex. In order to overcome her insecurities, she developed "tremendous pride... and the necessity to excel and be outstanding." Her outlook on life was also greatly influenced by her parent's progressive views. (5:52-15:18)... When she was eighteen years old, O'Hare's mother moved to Kansas City. She worked for a newspaper and at a machine shop. Her parents did not object to her decision to work instead of looking for a husband. O'Hare's grandmother was liberal in this respect and did whatever she wanted. When she met O'Hare's grandfather, she was determined to have him and went to drastic measures in order to get his attention. Being slave-owners and staunch confederates, her great-grandparents were not thrilled about their union, especially her great-grandmother who thought he was a treasonous, Yankee renegade. O'Hare's mother and siblings disliked their grandmother because she was strict and insisted that they learn proper manners. O'Hare describes her grandfather's ranch house. (15:18-27:11)... O'Hare describes her maternal grandparents as socialists and pacifists. They were not particularly religious and "hoped there was a god, but weren't convinced there was." Her grandmother was a resourceful woman who was the town physician. While visiting the ranch on their honeymoon, O'Hare's father seriously injured his nose and her grandmother closed the cut by bandaging it with egg shells. O'Hare believes that her grandmother learned this technique from the Indians. In fact, O'Hare's great-grandfather was a quarter Cherokee. When her grandmother lost her sight in her seventies, she moved in with O'Hare and her family. She had great influence over the family, which made her father jealous. (27:11-38:58)... When O'Hare was seventeen years old, her family moved to the Llano Cooperative Colony in Louisiana established by Job Harriman. [Editor's note: the original Llano Cooperative Colony was founded in California in 1914. Three years later, 200 members moved to the New Llano Colony n Louisiana.] O'Hare's parents published the National Ripsaw and helped established Commonwealth College, a labor school. When Harriman became ill and was no longer able to manage the colony, he was succeeded by George Pickett, who was an ineffective and opportunistic leader. Factions developed in the colony and Pickett and O'Hare claims that his people took advantage of the colony's cooperative efforts by hoarding food. Those who supported Commonwealth College broke away and moved the school to Arkansas. O'Hare's experiences in the colony soured her on the idea of socialism and communism. O'Hare's parents intended on relocating to Arkansas to teach at the college, but moved to Chicago instead and got caught up in the prison reform campaign. O'Hare participated in these efforts by covering Clarence Darrow's trials. (38:58-44:56)... When O'Hare's parents separated, her mother moved to New York and lived there for two or three years working on the prison reform campaign, after which she moved to California. O'Hare remained in Chicago because she wanted to be on her own. She went to work for an attorney as a secretary. His clientele consisted entirely of prostitutes. While working there, one of the attorneys suffered some sort of physical attack and was found in his office with his genitalia exposed. Even though it was an uncomfortable situation, O'Hare was not shocked by his nudity. O'Hare moved to New York with her husband after they married and had a daughter. Their marriage ended in divorce a few years later. (44:56-46:30)... O'Hare's mother was a suffragist. She has several photographs of her mother's activities during the woman's suffrage movement, one in which she is riding with Carrie Chapman Catt in a car during a demonstration. Catt was politically conservative and "it was only on that one point that they agreed." End of tape. *** File: refkohare4.mp3 (0:00-10:34)... O'Hare believe that men are not to blame for gender inequality in society; rather, "it is the system's fault." The men in O'Hare's life encouraged her and were confident about women's abilities. She finds it unfortunate that "this note of lesbianism has been injected into the women's liberation [movement] because it has nothing to do with it." Throughout her life she has known many lesbians and does not believe that their emotional attachments influence their political views. She thinks that a homosexual lifestyle is not a "wholesome influence" on society and believes that they should not be teachers because it allows them to come in close contact with children. O'Hare believes that homosexuality is a phase that many people go through early in their lives until they are able to "reorient" themselves towards heterosexuality. There is a sexual double standard in this respect because men are perceived as experimenting when engaging in homosexual behavior while women are viewed as promiscuous. In addition, when a man is ready to get married, he wants a woman who is sexually inexperienced. (10:34-13:21)... Greenwich Village was home to intellectuals and radicals with permissive ideas about sex. People often engaged in sexual relations with multiple partners and "there were certain amenities that were observed." At the same time, however, men did not want to marry promiscuous women. A free love mentality also existed in the SP among a minority of its members. There were very few people in the party who were lovers and unmarried to each other or anyone else. On the other end of the spectrum, there were "some women who made no bones about the fact that they weren't virgins." (13:21-20:50)... O'Hare comments on contemporary relationships and the high rate of illegitimacy. Because women are expected to bare the brunt of responsibility in supporting their illegitimate children, they are forced to work and find appropriate childcare. Even though she had to place her daughter in nursery school because she had to work, she believes that children under the age of two should be cared for by their parents exclusively. However, the "idea of a woman being tied to her child twenty-four hours a day is too much." While women should be able to do whatever they want, most double-income families do not earn enough to warrant placing their children in daycare. (20:50-25:16)... NOTE: The audio quality of this and the next segment is poor and it is often difficult to understand what the narrator is saying. O'Hare discusses the changes in marriage. However, the audio quality is poor as a result of background noise and it is difficult to piece together the details of her discussion. (25:16-33:14)... NOTE: The audio quality of this segment is poor. The only parts of the interview that can be heard are the comments/questions made by the interviewer. O'Hare discusses the women's movement and the contributions of radical and working-class women to the social, political and labor movements of the early 20th century. However, the audio quality is poor and most of her discussion is inaudible. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Kathleen O'Hare was one of four children born to early 20th century socialist organizer, Kate Richards O'Hare. She was probably born between 1902, when her parents married, and 1906. Although very few personal biographical details are revealed in the interview, which is primarily focused on her mother, interesting details about family life and relationships are revealed. TOPICS - SP; Mother Jones; Kate Richards O'Hare; Stella Valentine; Emma Goldman; arrest and imprisonment of Kate Richards O'Hare; family background; family life; parent's marital relationship; family relationships; Blacks in the SP; and women's position in the SP; Note: the audio quality of this interview is fair;women's position in the SP; SP encampments; American Indians; family background; family life; gender roles; living arrangements; Kate Richards O'Hare's arrest, appeal and subsequent imprisonment sentence; anti-war organizing of Kate Richard; Emma Goldman; prison reform movement; National Ripsaw; Kate Richards O'Hare's lecture tours for the SP; Note: the audio quality of this interview is fair;Eugene V; Debs; family history; life in the Llano Cooperative Colony; Commonwealth College; factionalism at the Llano Colony; early impressions of socialism and communism; prison reform movement; secretarial work in Chicago; marriage; and woman's suffrage movement; Note: the audio quality of this interview is fair;attitude towards women's liberation movement and gender inequality; views on lesbianism and homosexuality; sexual politics of Greenwich Village; free love; and discussion of women's roles and child care; Note: the audio quality of this interview is poor;
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