Barnard was born in Geneva, Nebraska, on May 23, 1875, to John P. and Rachel Sheill Barnard. She was only two when her mother died and was raised by relatives while her father worked in Oklahoma City. In 1891, she moved to Newella, Oklahoma, where her father had a land claim. In 1895, she moved to Oklahoma City where she attended St. Joseph’s Academy, obtained a teaching certificate, and taught there until 1902. She was deeply impressed and influenced by Jane Addams after hearing her speak at the International Congress of Arts and Sciences in 1904. In 1906, as Oklahoma’s status was changing from a territory to state, Barnard traveled to the slums, factories, and sweatshops of the East Coast in order to learn what eastern states were doing to protect working women and children. Her goal was to incorporate laws into the state constitution of Oklahoma. Although women could not serve in the constitutional assembly, Barnard was allowed to address the group and wrote articles for the Daily Oklahoman. Barnard also had a major role in writing the state’s constitution. During the Constitutional Convention she convinced delegates to adopt two reform measures: the prohibition of child labor, and the establishment of the office of commissioner of charities and corrections. After the convention the Democratic Party endorsed her candidacy for the position of commissioner, and she won the office by a greater plurality than any other candidate in Oklahoma's first general election, in which women could not vote. Triumph at the polls made Barnard the first woman elected to a major Oklahoma state office. As commissioner, she persuaded the state legislature to adopt laws requiring compulsory education, regulating child labor, and launching a juvenile justice system. n 1910 she achieved reelection by a substantial margin, but her second term proved less successful. She embraced an unpopular cause, the protection of Indian orphans' property rights. In 1913 and 1914 the legislature engaged in a ferocious attack on the executive branch, and Barnard provided a target for legislative critics, who slashed her department's budget and thereby its size and effectiveness. Wilma Mankiller's 1993 book, Mankiller, A Chief and Her People, on page 173 quotes Barnard: "I have been compelled to see orphans robbed, starved, and burned for money. I have named the men and accused them and furnished the records and affidavits to convict them, but with no result. I decided long ago that Oklahoma had no citizen who cared whether or not an orphan is robbed or starved or killed - because his dead claim is easier to handle than if he were alive." Barnard died on February 23, 1930 in Oklahoma City (where she was found dead in a hotel bathroom). She was buried in Oklahoma City (in a grave that was not marked until the 1980s), but today a bronze statue of her is on display on the first floor of the Oklahoma State Capitol. She was inducted in the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1982.

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