Flora Warren Seymour

Flora Warren Seymour
Seymour in 1925
Born
Flora Warren Smith[1]

1888 (1888)
Cleveland, Ohio, US
DiedDecember 10, 1948(1948-12-10) (aged 59–60)
Chicago, Illinois, US
EducationGeorge Washington University
OccupationsLawyer, writer
Spouse
George Steele Seymour
​
​
(m. 1915)​

Flora Warren Seymour (1888 – 1948) was an American lawyer and author.[2][3][4] She was appointed as the first woman member of the Board of Indian Commissioners by President Warren G. Harding.[4]

Biography

Flora Warren Seymour was born as Flora Warren Smith in Cleveland, Ohio,[5] to Eleanor De Forest (née Potter) and Charles Payne Smith.

She spent the majority of her childhood in the Washington D.C. area. She received her B.A. degree, Davis Prize in oratory,[6][1][7] Enosinian Society from George Washington University[1] LL. B. degree from Washington College of Law[1] and LL. M. degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law.[8][1]

Career

She was at the Indian Service while completing her degrees.

In 1916, she was admitted to the Illinois bar. She worked as a lawyer in Chicago.[9]

In 1919, she was admitted to the practice of law before the United States Supreme Court.

"Several former commissioners, such as Flora Warren Seymour and Dr. C.C. Lindquist, continued to oppose Collier and his reform agenda." [10]

On 5 October 1922, Flora Warren Seymour was appointed to the Board of Indian Commissioners.[11]

"Such a proposition implies that while Menominees are not to be trusted individually with a farm apiece, for fear they will lose it, they can collectively be given not only the land, but the management of large power and timber interests, the running of a big sawmill, with the railroad and other activities it entails. Out of nineteen hundred incapacities is to arise a great super-capacity. The whole is to be several times the sum of its parts. The mere statement of this proposition indicates its impractionbility."[12] - Flora Warren Seymour

Many of Seymour's books were about Native Americans.

"White women appointees to the Indian Bureau during the Gilded Age like Florence Etheridge and Flora Warren leveraged maternalistic guardianship over Native peoples into potent examples of civic authority for the women’s suffrage movement. By contrast, some Native employees like Gertrude Bonnin, a Sioux woman, became staunch defenders of tribal sovereignty and cultural autonomy."[13]

She was, for a time, the editor of Quest magazine and the assistant editor of the Women Lawyers Journal.[14]

Order of Bookfellows

Further information: Truth (plays)

With her husband[15] she helped found the Order of Bookfellows[16] - a Chicago-based literary society (subscription-based publishing) and then served as its executive head.[14] She also helped publish and edit its organ, the monthly magazine The Step-Ladder[17] from 1919 through 1943,[18][19] which featured prose and poetry by its members.[20][21][22][14][23][24][25][18]

In 1928, The Step Ladder offered three poetry prizes: the George Sterling Memorial Prize; the Sperling Sonnet Prize; and the Jeannette Chappel Competition.[26]

Notable members of the Order of Bookfellows include: Esther Nelson Karn, Elizabeth Anne Wells Cannon, Frederick Starr, Elkanah East Taylor, and Grace Porterfield Polk.

Personal life

In 1915, she married George Steele Seymour (1877-1945), an author, an assistant general auditor, who joined the Pullman Co. in 1910, and was a member of the Illinois bar.

She lived at 431 S. Dearborn St.,[1] 5529 Dorchester Ave.,[1] and 4917 Blackstone Avenue in Chicago.[5] She died in Chicago on December 10, 1948.[27]

Works

Plays

  • Seymour, Flora Warren (1924). What do we mean by Indian?. Home Missions Council of North America – via archive.org.

Books

Articles

  • "Land Titles in the Pueblo Indian Country", American Bar Association Journal. Vol. 10, No.1, 1924. p. 37.
  • "Burlesquing the American Indian", Woman Lawyers' Journal. Vol. 13, No.2, 1924. pp. 3–6.
  • "Our Indian Land Policy". The Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics. 2 (1): 93. January 1926. doi:10.2307/3139099. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  • "Report on the Mescalero Indian Reservation, New Mexico," June 6, 1932, BIA, vol. 10 [30]
  • "Indian Service Educational Activities in the Southwest," July 28, 1932, BIA, vol. 10 [30]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Maxwell, Will J.; Stockton, Charles H. (1917). General alumni catalogue of George Washington University. Washington, D.C. Retrieved January 14, 2026. Flora Warren Smith (Mrs. George Steele Seymour), A.B., 01; LL.B., 15, Wash. Coll. of Law; LL.M. 16, Chicago Kent Coll. of Law; Kappa Beta Pi; Enosinian; Davis Prize, 01; Class Poet, 01; Attorney at Law; Pres. Bur. of Volunteer Social Service; occasional contributor to social service magazines; mem. Women of the Empire State, Soc. of Ohio Women, Woman's Bar. Assn. R. 519, 431 S. Dearborn St., and 5529 Dorchester Ave. Chicago, 111.
  2. ^ Who was who Among North American Authors, 1921-1939. Gale Research Company. July 7, 1976. ISBN 9780810310414 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ Who's who in Chicago. A.N. Marquis & Company. July 7, 1926 – via Google Books.
  4. ^ a b Phillips, Marie Tello (September 1923). "The Honorable Flora Warren Seymour". Social Progress. VII (9): 284–285. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ a b The Biographical Cyclopaedia of American Women ... Halvord Publishing Company. July 7, 1924 – via Google Books.
  6. ^ "Davis Prize in oratory, George Washington University". Washington Post. March 30, 1907. p. 14. Retrieved January 14, 2026 – via NewspaperArchive.com. The programme has been completed for the annual Davis prize speaking at George Washington University tuesday evening april 2. This Competition which is open to senior students of columbian College is for three Gold medals founded by Isaac Davis d., of Massachusetts who was greatly interested in the training elocution. The committee of award this year will consist of Arthur t. Ramsay James Sharp and Stephen e. Kramer.
  7. ^ "Prize Speaking Contest.; George Washington University Orators Meet in New Chapel". The New York Times. Special to The New York Times. April 28, 1912. Retrieved January 14, 2026.
  8. ^ "Flora Warren Seymour". Simon & Schuster. Retrieved July 22, 2023.
  9. ^ "A Member Honored". Women Lawyers' Journal. 12 (4). Women Lawyers' Club: 30. August 1923 – via Google Books.
  10. ^ Blackman, Jon S. (2009). Oklahoma's Newer New Deal: The Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936. Norman, Oklahoma: DSpace, University of Oklahoma. hdl:11244/318930.
  11. ^ Fifty-Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1925 (PDF). U.S. Government Printing Office. 1925. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  12. ^ Davis, Kyle (June 14, 2023). "Indigenous Economies in Wisconsin: The Impact of Allotment Policies and the Indian New Deal, 1800s – 1930s". History Theses, Dissertations. Department of History, University of Nebraska at Kearney. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  13. ^ Broxmeyer, Jeffrey D. (October 2024). "The Old Republic: Clientelism in American Political Development". Studies in American Political Development. 38 (2). Cambridge University Press: 153–168. doi:10.1017/S0898588X24000075. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  14. ^ a b c Knox College (Illinois). "Bookfellows English and American Manuscripts Collection". collections.carli.illinois.edu CONTENTdm. Retrieved January 14, 2026.
  15. ^ Morris, Jerry. "A Bookfellow Anthology Originally Found Wanting". mysentimentallibrary.com. Retrieved January 14, 2026.
  16. ^ Seymour, George Steele; Seymour, Flora Warren (December 8, 1935). "letter, 1935-12-08". Calisphere. Retrieved January 14, 2026. to Hamlin Garland
  17. ^ "Lovecraft and the Order of Bookfellows". www.jurn.link. Retrieved July 22, 2023.
  18. ^ a b Seymour, Flora Warren (1919–1943). "The Step Ladder". The Bookfellows. Retrieved January 15, 2026 – via HathiTrust.
  19. ^ Social Progress: A Magazine for the New Day. Vol. 7, No. 9. September 1923, pp. 284-285.
  20. ^ Seymour, Flora Warren (1919). The Step Ladder, Volumes 1-5. The Bookfellows. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  21. ^ Seymour, Flora Warren (1922). The Step Ladder, Volumes 6-8. The Bookfellows. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  22. ^ Seymour, Flora Warren (1924). The Step Ladder, Volumes 9-11. The Bookfellows. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  23. ^ Seymour, Flora Warren (1925). The Step Ladder, Volumes 11-12. The Bookfellows. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  24. ^ Seymour, Flora Warren (1927). The Step Ladder, Volumes 13-14. The Bookfellows. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  25. ^ Seymour, Flora Warren (1929). The Step Ladder, Volumes 15-16. The Bookfellows. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  26. ^ "Books and Authors; Forthcoming Books". The New York Times. November 18, 1928. Retrieved January 15, 2026.
  27. ^ "Flora Warren Seymour". The Sheboygan Press. December 13, 1948. p. 12. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ^ Current Biography: Who's News and Why. H. W. Wilson Company. July 7, 1942 – via Google Books.
  29. ^ Cotterill, R. S. (May 1942). "Book REVIEW: Indian Agents of the Old Frontier". Journal of Southern History. 8 (2). Southern Historical Association. Retrieved January 14, 2026. Florida State College for Women
  30. ^ a b Matsumoto, Valerie J.; Allmendinger, Blake, eds. (1999). Over the Edge: Remapping the American West. University of California Press. ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft8g5008gq/
Kamsler, Brigette C. "Gustavus Elmer Emanuel Lindquist Papers, 1897–1955". Burke Library Blog. (PDF)
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