Dorothea B. Dale

Class of
1937
Dorothea B. Dale

Dorothea B. Dale

“For historians will certainly record that Mrs. Dale did more than any other one person to bring that everlasting beauty and blessing of books to Oklahoma.”
Fred Ameringer

Biography

Dorothea Bishop Dale was born in Iowa and educated at St. Clara’s College in Wisconsin, Valparaiso University in Indiana, and Highland Park College in Iowa. A registered pharmacist for seven years and a teacher in Hobart, Oklahoma, where her physician husband, John, worked, Mrs. Dale helped establish the community’s first library in 1914. She served as school superintendent in Hobart from 1917-1918. After her husband’s death in 1918, Mrs. Dale moved to Oklahoma City and became secretary of the Oklahoma Library Commission (1919-1950). By the time she was awarded Oklahoma City’s Woman of the Year in 1950, she had established a library commission that was serving over 150,000 rural Oklahomans every year. She also served as president of the Oklahoma Library Association and was library service chairman of the Oklahoma Federation of Women’s Clubs.

Fun fact

Throughout her career, Dorothea Dale helped establish more than 100 libraries in Oklahoma towns and paid for the college educations of over twenty young people.

Oklahoma connections

Dale came to settle in Hobart, Oklahoma in 1890.

Hometown

Oklahoma City

Profession

Public Servant

Presenter

Born

1872

Died

1962
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