Debo, Angie

Surname Index
Updated: 22 Jan 2012

State Historian
Angie Elbertha Debo
January 30, 1890 ~ February 21, 1988

complied by Marti Graham

This portrait of Debo hangs permanently in the state Capitol's fourth floor rotuna.
She became the first woman and scholar so honored in 1985.
She was the first woman to receive a doctorate from the University of Oklahoma in 1933.

Angie Debo, one of Oklahoman's leading historians is remembered as a keen observer who strived for accuracy. She utilized both archival materials and oral history to describe the complicated relationship between tribes and the federal government. She was not born in Oklahoma but rather on a farm in Beattie, Marshall County, Kansas¹ to Edward P. and Lina E. Debo, January 30, 1890, Angie traveled by covered wagon with her parents and her younger brother, Edwin, to Marshall, Oklahoma Territory, to be homesteaders in a pioneer community.

also see http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/D/DE002.html

New York Times, The
New York, New York
February 23, 1988

Angie Debo, who came to Oklahoma in a covered wagon and wrote 13 books and hundreds of articles about Indian and Oklahoma history, died Sunday at a hospital in Enid. She was 98 years old and lived in Marshall, a small town in central Oklahoma.

Angie Debo, who came to Oklahoma in a covered wagon and wrote 13 books and hundreds of articles about Indian and Oklahoma history, died Sunday at a hospital in Enid. She was 98 years old and lived in Marshall, a small town in central Oklahoma.

Her books include ''The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic,'' ''And Still The Waters Run,'' and ''Prairie City.''

Ms. Debo had no surviving relatives.

Daily Oklahoman, The
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
February 23, 1988, page 23

State Historian Angie Debo to be Buried in Marshall

Marshall -- Angie Debo, one of Oklahoma's leading historians, will be buried Wednesday in the small Logan County town where residents consider her their greatest treasure.

Debo, 98, came with her parents in a covered wagon to Oklahoma in 1899. She died Sunday at an Enid hospital, after being admitted with what was thought to be a virus.

Debo, who started out teaching, turned to writing and eventually wrote 13 books on Oklahoma and western history and wrote hundreds of articles.

"When you get to be 97, you know in good conscience that you won't live very long."

"Angie Debo was one of Oklahoma's grand ladies," Gov. Henry Bellmon said. "She has distinguished herself through her long life in many, many ways and will be sorely missed by all who knew her." Bellman ordered Monday that flags flying over all state agencies be lowered to half-staff Wednesday.

For the past 30 years, she live here in a house that belonged to her parents and to which she returned after their deaths.

The town of about 400 celebrates Debo's birthday each January. In April, Marshall puts on Prairie City Days, a weeklong celebration started in 1969 to celebrate a book she published under that name.

That book, "Prairie City," is her only fiction work and won her the A. A. Knopf Fellowship in history.

1913 graduated from high school ?at age 23? this this w/in ? correct?

1918 graduated from University of Oklahoma [OU],

1924 got her master's degree from the University of Chicago

1933 returned to OU to earn her doctorate. - she was the first woman to receive a doctorate from the University of Oklahoma.

Books by Angie Debo [list complied from metro.library catalog]

Oklahoma, foot-loose and fancy-free
Prairie city- her only fiction, her hometown, Marshall, furnished much of the background.
And still the waters run - tells of the breaking up of the governments of the Five Civilized Tribes
The cowman's Southwest
Geronimo
History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez Indians
A history of the Indians of the United States - an indepth historical survey - she received the Okie award for the best nonfition published by the Oklahoma Writers Federation.
The rise and fall of the Choctaw Republic published 1935 and it won the John H. Dunning Prize awarded by the American History Association.
The road to disappearance:
Tulsa: from creek town to oil capital
The WPA guide to 1930s Oklahoma

The Angie Debo Collection, housed in Special Collections and University Archives of the Oklahoma State University Library, consists of research material, including manuscripts of publications and presentations by Debo and related legal papers, correspondence, notes, etc. Unpublished manuscripts include some by Debo as well as Grant Foreman's "The American Indian and the Law" and World War II correspondence. It also contains personal and business correspondence, and memorabilia, diaries, articles, newspaper clippings, awards, books, maps and photographs dealing with Debo's writings and personal life. In addition there is some furniture from her home.
DeBo Interviews

debo_a1.gif

Daily Oklahoman, The
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
June 06, 1988, page 6

Debo's Wealth Was Her Work

Debo died in February at age 98. She had written 13 books about Oklahoma and its Indians, as well as hundreds of articles.

A few weeks after Debo was buried in a silver casket, Loyd and several other OSU employees traveled to Marshall. At Debo's home, they filled 57 boxes with books and writings that are now stored at the university.

The author-historian never married and had no family of her own. Most of her personal belongings went to first or second cousins or friends.

But the cardboard boxes full of paper yellowed with age are considered a goldmine. The thoughts and wisdom of Debo are on the crumbing pages and that makes them precious, OSU officials said.

They found at least one unpublished story written by Debo, but it cannot be shared with the public until legal matters are settled, officials said.

Although a painting of Debo was the first picture of a woman to be hung in the rotunda of the Oklahoma Capitol, her plain, spartan lifestyle clashes with the glamorous way the public probably pictured her as a well-known author. For 60 years, Debo lived in a small, two-bedroom bungalow at Market Street and Oklahoma Avenue in Marshall. The modest house was built in 1927. The housed is evidence of the love Angie Debo had for writing and her willingness to make economic sacrifices to remain a writer.

Most startling is the fact that she denied herself a desk and spent thousands of hours at an antique typewriter placed upon a tabletop, Lloyd said.

Angie Debo was born on January 30, 1890, less than one year after the Indian lands in Oklahoma Territory were opened for settlement. The Debo family did not participate in the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, but arrived ten years later when Debo was nine. She traveled to Marshall, Oklahoma Territory, in a covered wagon with her mother and younger brother, while her father rode ahead with the farm machinery. Debo wrote in her diary that she was hoping to see Indians as she reached Oklahoma, but instead only saw white settlers.
Debo attended a rural grade school and was taught very little Indian history. Since there was no high school in Marshall until 1910, Debo obtained her teacher's certificate at age sixteen and taught in rural schools near the family farm. She describes this time as miserable, because she wanted to accomplish something with her life. She finally graduated from high school at the age of twenty-three, one of nine members of Marshall's first graduating class.
Debo graduated with a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Oklahoma in 1918. She taught history for four years in the Enid High School, then enrolled in the University of Chicago to work on a master's degree. Because women were not allowed to enter the history field at this time, Debo studied International Relations. In 1924, Debo not only received her master's degree, but also published her thesis, "The Historical Background of the American Policy of Isolation," co-authored with J. Fred Rippy, in the Smith College Studies in History

The daughter of Oklahoma sodbusters and a student of Edward Everett Dale Angie Debo was an unlikely forerunner of the New Western History. Breaking with the followers of Frederick Jackson Turner,

http://title3.sde.state.ok.us/library/itv/debo/debo.html.

October 16, 1988, page 157

April 16, 1967, page 23
10 State Authors Win Library Week Salute.

Angie Elberta Debo
pg 5 - parents Lina & Edward Debo
page 5 her adolescent role modl was Oklahoma reformer Catherin Ann Barnard
pg 6 she scarificed marriage and family life in interest of a professional career.

WORKS CITED

^{1 some sources state
"She was born January 30, 1890 on a farm about 20 miles
south of Manhattan, Kansas" [Manhattan is in Riley County,
Kansas] others "January 30, 1890 Beattie, Kansas"
[Beattie is in Manhattan County, Kansas]}

"Angie Debo, Oklahoma Historian, 98 [Obituary]." New York Times, The (Archives 12 Oct 2007:

AArt of the Oklahoma State Capitol. Oklahoma State Senate Historical Preservation Fund. 10 Oct. 2007 <http://www.arts.ok.gov/capitolart/permart/paintings/wilson/debo.html>

"State Historian Angie Debo to be Buried in Marshall." The Daily Oklahoman Archives 23 Feb. 1988: page no.23

"Debo's Wealth Was Her Work." The Daily Oklahoman Archives June 06, 1988, page 6

Leckie, Shirley A. Angie Debo, Pioneering Historian. The Oklahoma Western Biographies. vol. 18. Norman, OK: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2000.

Sources: good faith fair use of sources stated above

Contributed by Marti Graham, October 2007. Information posted for educational purposes for viewers and researchers. The contributor is not related to nor researching any of the above.

I believe in random acts of kindness and I believe in sharing genealogy. If you have copies of photos, obituaries, wills, biographies, or stories relating to any of these families or other Oklahoma County families, would you consider sending them my way for publication at this site?

I always welcome comments and corrections.