1850-1933
called the "People's Joan of Arc".
campaigner for Populist Party in 1880s and 1890s.
also active in the Farmers' Alliance, the Knights of Labor, Socialist Labor Party.
Literary scholar Brian Attebery claimed Mary Elizabeth Lease to have been the model for Dorothy in L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
(That is related to the idea that the Wizard of Oz story is a parable of political anti-bank reform, in which the yellow brick road is gold-backed currency, the tin man is the industrial worker, the scarecrow is the apolitical farmer, and I assume the hidden hand of the marketplace is the wizard behind the currtain. "Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth"...)
With achievement of solid social progress and the election of Teddy Roosevelt on a reform platform, she said,
"In these later years I have seen, with gratification, that my work in the good old Populist days was not in vain. The Progressive party has adopted our platform, clause for clause, plank by plank. Note the list of reforms which we advocated which are coming into reality. Direct election of senators is assured. Public utilities are gradually being removed from the hands of the few and placed under the control of the people who use them. Women suffrage is now almost a national issue... The seed we sowed out in Kansas did not fall on barren ground."
She was said to have exhorted Kansas farmers to "raise less corn and more hell", but she later said that the admonition had been invented by reporters. Lease decided to let the quote stand anyway because she thought "it was a right good bit of advice"
In the Populist Party's 1890 campaign she made more than 160 speeches.
Excerpt from one, "The Money Question", is available here:
She is credited with helping cause the defeat of Kansas senator John Ingalls. William A. Peffer was elected on the Populist ticket.
In 1895, she wrote The Problem of Civilization Solved. [I have not yet checked this out - if the title is true, it is a good thing to read!]
In 1896, she moved to New York City where she edited the democratic newspaper, World. In addition, she worked as an editor for the National Encyclopedia of American Biography.
(above info from Wiki "Mary Elizabeth Lease")
Oddly,
Edmonton Bulletin Nov. 24, 1892 wrote that Lease was expected to be "elected U.S. Senator for Kansas on the 'populist' vote, that being the name for the United States's third party."
But there seems no other report that she ran for public office herself at any time.
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