Robertson, Alice, 1854-1931

Alice Mary Robertson (January 2, 1854 – July 1, 1931) was an American educator, social worker, government official, and politician who became the second woman to serve in the United States Congress, and the first from the state of Oklahoma. Robertson was the first woman to defeat an incumbent congressman. She was known for her strong personality, commitment to Native American issues, and anti-feminist stance.

Born at the Tullahassee Mission in Creek Nation, Indian Territory, Robertson attended Elmira College before undertaking work as a a clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Washington, D.C. from 1873 to 1879. She returned to the Indian Territory and taught briefly in the school at Tullahassee. Later she taught at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, from 1880 to 1882. Robertson later returned to Oklahoma. In 1885 she founded the Minerva Home—a boarding school to train Native-American girls in domestic skills. This institution later became Henry Kendall College (the present-day University of Tulsa).

In 1905 then-President Roosevelt appointed Robertson the postmaster of Muskogee, Oklahoma, where she served until 1913. In addition to her patronage job, Robertson operated a 50-acre dairy farm with an on-site café. In 1916, the Republican Party nominated her to run for county superintendent of public instruction, but Robertson lost. Robertson ran for an eastern Oklahoma congressional seat in 1920, challenging a three-term Democratic incumbent, William Wirt Hastings, narrowly defeating him by less than 250 votes thanks to support from farmers and veterans.

An opponent of feminist groups, Robertson alienated the veterans that had helped to propel her to victory when she opposed a measure that would have allowed them to receive an early payment on their military service pensions. Though she managed to win the Republican primary in 1922, she lost in a rematch with her nemesis, William Hastings, by a 16-point margin. Supported by generous friends and family, she spent the remainder of her life in Muskogee, where she died in 1931.