Belle Kearney: one of America's foremost lecturers

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Miss Belle Kearney
One of America's Foremost Lecturers


Miss Belle Kearney
Miss Kearney is celebrated as a lecturer, writer and traveler.  Her accomplishments render her the peer of the most intellectual women in all lands, splendidly representing the spirit of modern, progressive womanhood.  Miss Kearney has recently returned from Europe, where she went in the fall of 1915 to do relief work for war sufferers.  She gained a vast amount of information, which is now being given to the world through the channel of public lectures.

Miss Kearney's success as an orator has been remarkable.  In Toronto, Canada, at Massey Hall, she addressed audiences numbering more than four-thousand.  She received ovations and was invited to return and lecture at other mammoth meetings.  Once she addressed an audience of ten-thousand in Royal Albert Hall, London, England, and was cheered repeatedly.  She spoke before an audience numbering thousands at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, where the demonstration was amazing.  While delivering an address in New Orleans, the audience would stand again and again and applaud.  No grander compliment was ever accorded a woman in the South.  At a meeting held in Convention Hall, Washington, D. C., Miss Kearney addressed an audience of ten-thousand.  At the close of her lecture, she was given a prolonged demonstration.

For several years Miss Kearney has devoted herself, almost exclusively, to Chautauqua and Lyceum work.  She has a wide range of subjects: from travels to sociological studies.  In 1910, Miss Kearney accomplished the longest, continuous lecture-campaign of her years upon the platform.  From May to October, she spoke at the Lincoln Chautauquas; delivering twelve lectures each week, at one hundred different places.  In 1911, she addressed great audiences every day, for nearly three months, at the Redpath-Vawter Chautauquas.  In 1912, she lectured through the entire season, on the largest circuit of the Redpath-Horner Chautauquas.  During the fall and winter of 1911, and late into the spring of 1912, she was in the Lyceum field of the Middle West and on the Pacific coast.  In 1913 she was with the Ellison-White Chautauquas; in 1914–15 again with the Lincoln Management; and in 1916 with the Standard of Lincoln, Nebraska.  Miss Kearney is the possessor of a marvelous voice.  It is beautifully modulated; rich, deep, musical, powerful; with a carrying capacity that is tremendous.  She is famous for her fine English.  Her entrance upon the Chautauqua and Lyceum platform has added much to its dignity, brilliancy and effectiveness.

Miss Kearney's platform career was begun soon after meeting Miss Frances E. Willard.  She entered the work of the Great Reform, to which that matchless leader had consecrated her talents, and was at once chosen to fill important offices.  She was crowned with promotions.  These found their culmination in the reception of a cablegram from England inviting her to speak at an international convention, to be held in London.  While there, she was commissioned to go around the globe in the interest of the world's work.  Most distinguished attentions were paid Miss Kearney on this, her first visit to Europe.  She was the guest of Lady Henry Somerset, at Reigate, Surrey, and in London; and was offered the hospitality of Eastnor Castle, and of Lady Henry's home in Switzerland.  Before returning to America, an extended tour through many countries, was accomplished.

From her earliest years Miss Kearney has believed in the enfranchisement of women, and has worked for that cause almost from the beginning of her public life.  She has twice occupied the position of President of the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association.  In 1910 she addressed the legislature of Maryland.  She has addressed other state legislatures, in advocacy of different reforms; and has had the privilege of appearing before Congressional Committees at the National Capitol.  Miss Kearney is a member of the International Lyceum Association, the Woman Suffrage Association, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Daughters of the Confederacy, and has a right to belong to the Colonial Dames.  In recent years, Miss Kearney has made a journey around the world upon her own responsibility—going alone.  She traveled leisurely from land to land, lecturing, writing for a syndicate of newspapers and studying human conditions.  Honors were heaped upon her.  She was entertained, in various countries, by eminent personages; many of whom belonged to the nobility.  The foremost of these was Count Leo Tolstoi.




Lecture Subjects:

War Time in Europe
Russia As I Saw It
Old Days in Dixie Land
The Light on the Flag
Pulse-Beats of Nations
Woman Suffrage
Several Lectures on the Temperance Reform
Life in the Nile Country, illustrated with beautiful stereopticon views obtained in the Orient.



Press Comment

Miss Belle Kearney gave the master-stroke of the evening.—
The Echo, London, England.


It remained to Miss Kearney to capture the meeting by storm.—
The Christian Commonwealth, London, England.


Miss Kearney's lecture was a masterpiece of expression and power.—
The Free Press, London, Canada.


Miss Belle Kearney followed with an address full of eloquence.  She is a powerful speaker.—
Globe Democrat, St. Louis.


Miss Belle Kearney, who is a fluent, forceful and witty speaker, roused the audience to enthusiasm.—
New York Daily Tribune, Brooklyn.


Miss Belle Kearney was introduced * * * Her address was remarkable.  * * * A masterpiece of oratory backed up by an endless array of facts most forcibly expressed.—
The Washington Post, Washington, D. C.


Miss Belle Kearney, a lady with a most charming accent, the soft, Southern sound, was a great favorite with the audience.  She told a number of anecdotes with a rich humor that was captivating.  She carried her audience away with her in a powerful appeal.—
The St. Paul Globe, St. Paul, Minn.


Miss Belle Kearney is one of the brilliant women.  A Mississippian by birth, she possesses all the grace and charm of manner so long accorded the women of the South.  She is a gifted orator, speaking with fervid eloquence which carries conviction by its earnestness quite as much as by its logic.—
Inter-Ocean, Chicago.


Miss Kearney is a woman of brilliant talent.  She has a voice which penetrates to every portion of the auditorium where she speaks, and it is of a depth and sweetness which makes it never tiresome.—
The Daily News, Denver, Colorado.



Personal Endorsements
Miss Belle Kearney is the ablest woman lecturer on the platform in America today.  Her service has been exceedingly satisfactory.

ALONZO E. WILSON, Manager of the Lincoln-Chautauqua System. Chicago, Ill.

Miss Belle Kearney devoted the entire chautauqua season of 1912 to a lecture-tour on chautauquas under our management.  She lectured in about seventy different cities, and in every place gave universal satisfaction.

Miss Kearney brings a high degree of culture and refinement to the lecture platform.  Besides, she has such a charming personality, and is naturally so well equipped as a public-speaker, that her lectures cannot fail to be distinctly successful.

CHARLES F. HORNER, Manager, Redpath-Horner Chautauquas, Kansas City, Mo.

I consider Miss Belle Kearney one of the most eloquent, forceful, logical and convincing speakers on the American platform.  Her lectures cannot fail to be helpful to the cause which she advocates.

DR. ANNA H. SHAW, Ex-President National American Woman Suffrage Association, Philadelphia, Penn.

I rejoice at the success of Miss Kearney's work.  I am sure the result of the consecration of her great gifts will be blessed to many.  I want her to come to England again some day.

ISABEL SOMERSET, (LADY HENRY SOMERSET) Ex-President of the World's W. C. T. U.

Miss Belle Kearney ranks as one of the great orators of our nation.  She possesses unquestioned power.  Her platform presence is fine—her voice is strong, rich and penetrating.  Miss Kearney is a lady of high birth and rare culture.

GEORGE W. BAIN, Chautauqua Lecturer, Lexington, Ky.

Miss Kearney is extraordinarily gifted.  Her power of forceful and lucid expression is almost unequaled.  She has visited nearly every section of the globe and has made observations with rare discrimination.  As a lecturer, on high themes, Miss Kearney has won international fame.

W. B. MURRAH, Bishop Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Jackson, Mississippi.





MISS BELLE KEARNEY