Minerva Cozens Kline Brooks (1883 – May 5, 1929) was a supporter of the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

movement in the United States and was active in the arts scene in Cleveland, helping to form the

Cleveland Play House Cleveland Play House (CPH) is a professional regional theater company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded in 1915 and built its own noted theater complex in 1927. Currently the company performs at the Allen Theatre in Playhouse Square wher ...

in 1915. She taught dance at the Noyes School of Rhythm in Cleveland.

Life

Brooks née Kline was born in 1883 in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

to Virgil P. Kline and Minerva E. Cozens Kline. She attended

Hathaway Brown School Hathaway Brown, commonly referred to as HB, is an all-girls private school located in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The school serves pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students. Hathaway Brown is a member of the National Coalition of Girls' Schools, ...

and graduated from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

in 1903. Her mother died during her early childhood, and her father married secondly Effie Hinckley Ober, a real estate investor and founder-manager of the

Boston Ideal Opera Company The Boston Ideal Opera Company, later The Bostonians, was a comic opera acting company based in Boston from 1878 through 1905.Bordman, Gerald & Thomas S. HischakThe Oxford Companion to American Theatre p. 87 (3d ed 2004) History Effie Hinckley O ...

. The summers of Brooks' youth were spent in

Blue Hill, Maine Blue Hill is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,792 at the 2020 census. It is home to the Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, George Stevens Academy, the Blue Hill Harbor School, The Bay Sch ...

, where her father and stepmother had founded a summer colony which attracted a number of prominent Clevelanders, including

Walter Teagle Walter Clark Teagle (May 1, 1878 – January 9, 1962) was president of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey from 1917 to 1937 and was chairman of the board from 1937 to 1942. He was responsible for leading Standard Oil to the forefront of the oil ...

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

and family members & business associates of industrialist

Mark Hanna Marcus Alonzo Hanna (September 24, 1837 – February 15, 1904) was an American businessman and Republican politician who served as a United States Senator from Ohio as well as chairman of the Republican National Committee. A friend and pol ...

. On October 12, 1907 Minerva married writer Charles S. Brooks. In 1910 she joined of the Cleveland chapter of the

College Equal Suffrage League The College Equal Suffrage League (CESL) was an American woman suffrage organization founded in 1900 by Maud Wood Park and Inez Haynes Irwin (''nee'' Gillmore), as a way to attract younger Americans to the women's rights movement. The League spurred ...

. Brooks was also a member of the Cleveland Suffrage Association and the Cleveland Suffrage Party. Brooks helped form the

with a group of friends including Ernest and Katherine Angell, parents of the late

Roger Angell Roger Angell (September 19, 1920 – May 20, 2022) was an American essayist known for his writing on sports, especially baseball. The only writer ever elected into both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Baseball Writers' Associa ...

. She appeared in their first production, a puppet show. The Brookses moved to New York City in 1916. They returned to Cleveland where Minerva taught interpretive dance at the Cleveland branch of the Noyes School of Rhythm. The couple divorced in 1925. Brooks died on May 5, 1929 in Boston. Her legacy includes The Music Settlement of Cleveland, a music school still active to which she left her house on Magnolia Drive.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Minerva 1883 births 1929 deaths Modern dancers American suffragists People from Cleveland