Alice Mary Robertson
Alice Mary Robertson
“She was conservative, adventuresome, loved life and people, loved learning, had good taste, was generous; and defended those who had been wronged. She was a progressive thinker. She kept records of everything for people to enjoy, almost as if she was planning for future generations to be able to learn from her experience.”
Biography
Born near present-day Muskogee, Alice Robertson began her professional career as a teacher at her parent’s Tullahassee Mission School for the Creek Nation. Affectionately known as “Miss Alice,” she served as a teacher at the Creek Nation school in Okmulgee (1882-1883), was the Director of Minerva Home, a boarding school for girls and now Tulsa University (1885), served as the Indian Commission’s stenographer during negotiations for land in the Cherokee Outlet (1889), was U.S. School Supervisor for the Creek Nation (1900-1905), and was appointed as America’s first woman Postmaster by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, at Muskogee (1905-1913).
Upon the completion of her home on Agency Hill west of Muskogee she dubbed the residence and later her cafeteria, Sawokla, which means “gathering place” in the Creek language (1910). Oklahoma’s Third District elected her to Congress by a majority vote, making her only the second woman to sit in the House of Representatives (1920-1923).
Fun fact
Alice Robertson was America’s first female postmaster and the second woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. In 1921 U.S. President Warren Harding sent her as his personal representative to the Rose Festival in Portland, Oregon. In 1929 she was honored as the distinguished guest of the Business and Professional Women’s Clubs of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma connections
Robertson was born and raised near Muskogee, Oklahoma.