Mabel Bassett

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mabel Bassett
A white woman wearing a white blouse with a high collar
Mabel Bassett, from a 1923 publication
Born
Mabel Luella Bourne

August 16, 1876
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedAugust 2, 1953(1953-08-02) (aged 76)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
OccupationPolitician

Mabel Luella Bourne Bassett (August 16, 1876[a] – August 2, 1953) was a Democratic Oklahoma politician who served as the state's Commissioner of Charities and Corrections from 1923 until 1947.

Early life[edit]

Mabel Bourne was born in Chicago, the daughter of Stephen Bourne and Martha E. Yourlin Bourne. She graduated from high school in Billings, Montana. She lived in Trinidad, Colorado as a young woman, and moved to Sapulpa, Oklahoma in 1902. She took courses at the Missouri School of Social Work in St. Louis.[1]

Career[edit]

Prior to seeking political office, Bassett founded the Creek County Humane Society, one of the first humane societies in Oklahoma.[2] During World War I, she was executive secretary of the Creek County Red Cross.[1]

Once in office as Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, Bassett was responsible for establishing a women's unit of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and transferring African-American juvenile delinquents from the state penitentiary to a training school in Boley.[2] In 1923, she issued a report on abusive and negligent conditions at the Pauls Valley Training School, a juvenile detention facility. "The people of Oklahoma want the truth," she said of her reform campaign. "They do not want their little boys flogged by drunken guards and I shall see that it is stopped, regardless of what is thrown in my path."[3] In 1936, she investigated the death of an 11-year-old boy who died attempting to escape a fourth-floor jail cell in Stillwater.[4]

Bassett also campaigned for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1932; however, she lost to fellow Democrat Will Rogers.[2] She ran for a Congressional seat again in 1940.[1] Buck Cook replaced Bassett as Commissioner of Charities and Corrections in 1947, at which point Bassett retired from politics, and ran a cattle farm in Guthrie, Oklahoma.[2][5]

From 1930 to 1931, Bassett was vice-president of the American Prison Association.[1]

Personal life, death, and legacy[edit]

Bourne married train conductor Joseph L. Bassett in 1890, and had three children. Her daughter died in 1935.[6] Upon her Bassett's death from cancer in 1953, in Oklahoma City,[5][7] her body lay in state in the Oklahoma State Capitol.[2][8] Oklahoma's Mabel Bassett Correctional Center is named for Bassett.

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Her gravestone gives 1875 as the birth year.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Two Fearsome Females; Politicians Fear These Oklahoma Amazons". Daily News. 1940-05-05. p. 188. Retrieved 2023-03-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Bassett, Mabel Luella Bourne (1876-1953)". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved April 14, 2017.
  3. ^ "The Recrudescence of Kate Barnard" Harlow's Weekly 22(20)(May 19, 1923): 1.
  4. ^ "Bassett 'Probe' of Baker Case Scored Today". The Cushing Daily Citizen. 1936-03-26. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-03-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b "Mrs. Mabel Bassett Dies in Oklahoma". Times Record News. 1953-08-03. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-03-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Mabel Bassett's Daughter Dies". The Daily Ardmoreite. 1935-12-09. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-03-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ "Former Charities Commissioner Dies". Sequoyah County Times. 1953-08-07. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-03-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Bassett Rites Today". Miami News-Record. 1953-08-04. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-03-16 – via Newspapers.com.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mabel_Bassett&oldid=1217668205"