Kathleen F. Lawler papers

Collection

Identifier: 00134

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection contains materials from the 1907 land fraud case, the Republican Speaker's Bureau and the Newberry-Ford dispute. This includes correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, newspapers, a scrapbook and photographs.

Dates

Creation: 1888 - 1938
Creation: Majority of material found within 1895 - 1938

Creator

Lawler, Kathleen F. (Kathleen Frances), 1870-1938 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish material from this collection must be obtained from University Archives & Historical Collections, Michigan State University.

Biographical Note

Kathleen Frances Lawler served various people, offices and organizations as a stenographer/secretary. In 1895 she steno-reported the Utah statehood campaign; in 1896 she steno-reported both the McKinley and Bryan campaigns in the Midwest. In 1907 she was the steno secretary to Ormsby McHarg who had been appointed to investigate a land fraud case in Santa Fe, New Mexico, involving notable political people in the nascent state. She was a secretary to Senator Platt of Connecticut until his death; secretary to the Republican Speakers Bureau, 1917; and personal secretary to Warren G. Harding during his campaign for the Presidency. In 1920 she served as a special clerk on the Senate Committee of Privilege and Elections which investigated the 1916 Newberry-Ford senatorial election in Michigan.

The collection deals with the 1907 land fraud case, the Republican Speakers Bureau and the Newberry-Ford dispute. This dispute arose from challenges by Henry Ford that his election loss to Truman H. Newberry, a commissioned naval officer, in 1916 was the result of financial improprieties on the part of the Newberry campaign. Following lengthy litigation and investigation these charges were both judicially and subsequently legislatively found groundless.