Kate “Ma” Barker and her sons terrorized the Midwestern United States with gangster violence throughout the Depression era. Born Arizona Clark on October 8, 1873, in Ash Grove, Missouri, to John Clark and Emmaline Eliza Parker Reynolds, as a child Kate was thrilled about crime and greatly admired the outlaw life of the Old West bandit Jesse James (1847–1882). Growing up in the environment of the Wild West, where criminal activities were the order of the day, Ma was not new to crime scenes. In 1892 she married farm laborer George E. Barker, and the couple lived in poverty in Aurora, Missouri. They had four sons: Herman Barker (1893–1927), Lloyd William Barker (1898–1949), Arthur R. “Doc” Barker (1899–1939), and Fred Barker (1902–1935). The family relocated to Webb City, Missouri, in 1904.
In 1915 Ma, with her husband and sons, settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but George left the family around then. Ma thereafter ruled her sons with an iron hand and would not even allow them to have girlfriends. Ma became the matriarch of the gang, which consisted of her sons as well as the infamous Karpis gang members. It is not clear whether she actually participated in criminal activities, but she did plot and frequently gave advice to the gang. In an era of gangster crimes, elaborate myths were woven around Ma Barker. She is not known to have been an active participant in a murder, but FBI director J. Edgar Hoover would later use her as a scapegoat all the same, and she died in a gun battle with authorities.
Machine-gun matriarch Arizona Donnie Clark “Ma” Barker (1873–1935) led a crew made up of her own sons and the infamous Karpis Gang, and ended her days in a shootout with the FBI. (New York Times Co./Getty Images)
Ma’s gun-toting sons began their life of crime in 1915. Herman Barker, the eldest son, was arrested on March 15 of that year for highway robbery in Joplin, Missouri. The Barker boys had joined a group of juvenile criminals, dubbed the Central Park Gang, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For about a decade, all Ma’s sons were involved in bank raids, automobile theft, burglary, and robbery. On July 4, 1918, Ma’s third son, Arthur, was arrested for car theft in Tulsa but escaped. He was later involved in a bank robbery case in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and was arrested on January 15, 1921. He was released after some months. Arthur, along with criminal Volney Davis, killed night guard Thomas J. Sherril in Tulsa on August 16, 1921. The second son, Lloyd, was jailed for twenty-five years in Baxter Springs, Kansas, on January 16, 1922, for mail theft. The youngest son, Fred, was incarcerated on March 12, 1927, in the Kansas City jail after perpetrating a bank robbery in Winfield. Herman shot down sheriff’s deputy Arthur Osborn on August 1, 1927 after the sheriff had stopped Herman’s car for speeding; the auto was loaded with stolen bonds from the America National Bank in Cheyenne, Wyoming. After eight days, police officer J. E. Marshall from Wichita, Kansas, was killed by the Kimes-Terrill Gang, with whom Herman was associated. He committed suicide on August 29 that year after police flagged his car down in a roadblock. Lloyd, Fred, and Arthur were still in jail at that point.
Ma was trying her best to get her sons freed, appealing to governors, wardens, and parole boards for their release. While in Kansas State Prison, Fred met notorious gang leader Alvin Karpis (1907–1979) and another chapter began in America’s history of 1930s gangsterism. Fred and Karpis, along with Arthur, joined together to form the dreaded Karpis-Barker gang, most likely with Ma’s blessing.
The crime spree of the Karpis-Barker gang soon began. On June 10, 1931, Fred and Alvin were arrested by Tulsa police for their alleged involvement in a burglary, but were released soon thereafter. The Karpis-Barker gang killed police chief Manley Jackson on November 8, 1931, but two local persons were wrongly charged by the police instead. On December 19 that same year, both criminals looted a shop in West Plains, Missouri, and also killed the sheriff of Howell County, Missouri, C. Roy Kelly. From 1932 to 1935, the Karpis-Barker gang was involved in a spate of crimes involving burglary, bank robbery, murder, and kidnapping. It became one of the most dreaded gangs of the “Golden Age” of bank robbery. Arthur was pardoned by Oklahoma governor William Murray in 1932, but Lloyd was incarcerated in Leavenworth, Kansas, after a mail robbery that year. It also has been reported that the Barkers had heavily bribed some politicians.
Arthur could now fully participate in the criminal activities of the Karpis-Barker gang, which also had newly recruited mobsters such as Charles Fitzgerald, Frank Nash, Fred Goetz, Joseph Moran, Harry Campbell, and Harvey Bailey. From summer through December 1932, the gang’s activities included robbing the Kansas Bank in Fort Scott and the Cloud County Bank in Concordia, Kansas. Two police officials and one civilian were killed by the Karpis-Barker gang that December while the gang was robbing the Northwestern National Bank in Minneapolis. The gang was also responsible for two murders in April and August 1932. The rush of bank robberies and murders by the Karpis-Barker gang continued unabated throughout 1933 and 1934. During this period the gang also became involved in kidnapping. They released the liquor magnate of Minnesota, William A. Hamm Jr., on June 19, 1933, after receiving a ransom of $100,000. Another high-profile kidnapping case was the abduction of Minnesota millionaire Edward Bremer in 1934. Bremer was released after a payment of $200,000 in ransom money.
Although Ma Barker was not directly involved in the crimes committed by her sons, she operated behind the scenes. She clearly profited from their activities as well, and she led a gala lifestyle with their ill-gotten money. In the early 1930s, however, the Bureau of Investigation (renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, in 1935) under J. Edgar Hoover directed its attention toward gangland crimes such as bank robberies, kidnapping, and the mobster culture that had swept the United States. As the federal authorities began to turn up the heat, gangster folk heroes began to fall. Bank robber John Dillinger, for example, was shot dead in 1934, and the kidnappers of Charles Lindbergh’s infant son were arrested in that same year. Subsequently, the noose tightened around the Karpis-Barker gang. One by one, the gang members were arrested and/or killed by FBI agents. Arthur was arrested on January 8, 1935, and eight days afterward, Earl J. Connelley and thirteen FBI agents raided the family’s hideout in a cottage near Lake Weir, Ocklawaha, Florida. The gun battle lasted four to five hours, and Ma Barker and Fred were ultimately killed. Ma’s bullet-ridden body was found in a curled-up position under a bedroom window, still holding a machine gun. Her estranged husband, George Barker, buried her and Fred at Williams Timberhill Cemetery in Welch, Oklahoma, and Arthur was later killed by guards while trying to escape from the Alcatraz prison in 1939.
After his release from prison, Lloyd became a cook in the American army at Fort Custer, Michigan. On March 18, 1949, he was murdered by his wife, who was sent to Colorado State Insane Asylum for treatment. Karpis was arrested in May 1936, and some glimpses of Ma Barker can be found in his book, The Alvin Karpis Story (1971). A total of three gang members were killed by law enforcement authorities, eighteen were arrested, and two were murdered by fellow gangsters. Through screenplays such as Public Enemy Number One and Bloody Barkers, Ma Barker’s legacy continues in TV shows and films. A number of TV shows have depicted her life, including Ma Barker and Her Boys (1959), Ma Barker’s Killer Brood (1960), and Ma Barker (1961). Ma was also brought to life in movies like Bloody Mama (1970), directed by Roger Corman, with Shelley Winters starring as Ma and Robert De Niro playing Fred. Ma has also inspired movies such as The Goonies (1985) and Public Enemies (1996).
Ma’s house, built by Miami entrepreneur Carson Bradford, known for being the scene of the gun battle with the FBI, came up for sale in August 2012 with a price tag of $1 million. It is believed by many that the house is haunted. In an era that witnessed unprecedented lawlessness wrought by notorious gangsters, Ma and her sons emerged as notable figures who terrorized the population from Minnesota to Texas. After their demise, a chapter in gangsterism came to an end, but the Barker legacy remains vibrant in American folklore in numerous books, songs, TV shows, and movies.
Patit Paban Mishra
See also Bonnie and Clyde; Dillinger, John; James, Jesse
Further Reading
Burrough, Bryan. 2004. Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34. New York: Penguin Press.
deFord, Miriam Allen. 1970. The Real Ma Barker: Mastermind of a Whole Family of Killers. New York: Ace.
Hamilton, Sue, and John Hamilton. 1989. Public Enemy Number One: The Barkers. Bloomington, MN: Abdo and Daughters.
Hoover, J. Edgar. 1961. Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It. New York: Holt.
Hornberger, Francine. 2002. Mistresses of Mayhem: The Book of Women Criminals. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha Books.
Koblas, John J. 2008. "Ma”: The Life and Times of Ma Barker and Her Boys. St. Cloud, MN: North Star Press of St. Cloud.
Morton, James. 2012. The Mammoth Book of Gangs. Philadelphia: Running Press.
Welch, Larry. 2012. Beyond Cold Blood: The KBI from Ma Barker to BTK. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Winter, Robert. 2000. Mean Men: The Sons of Ma Barker. Danbury, CT: Rutledge Books.
Barker, Ma—Primary Document
Selection from FBI Report on Ma Barker (1936)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation expended vast resources in the 1920s and 1930s in an attempt to curtail gang activity throughout the United States, fighting bootlegging in the cities and robbery sprees in small towns throughout the Midwest and beyond. In this report, the FBI explored the origins of the Karpis-Barker gang and in this selection from the report, tried to theorize why Arizona Donnie “Ma” Barker turned to a life of crime before she was killed in a shootout with FBI agents on January 16, 1935, in Ocklawaha, Florida.
JOHN EDGAR HOOVER
DIRECTOR
Federal Bureau of Investigation
United States Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.
November 19, 1936
I.C. #7 -576
THE KIDNAPING OF EDWARD GEORGE, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.
History and Early Association of the Karpis-Barker Gang Prior to the Abduction of Mr. Bremer.
The citizens of the southwestern part of the United States had, for a number of years, known and feared many notorious criminals who lived by means outside of the law, outlaws who plundered throughout the States of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Another outlaw band had its origin in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and. Arkansas and the Cookson Hills of Oklahoma, which was later to be publicized as the notorious Karpis-Barker Gang, which except for its mobility and modern equipment of machine guns and fast automobiles was made up of typical southwestern bandits. The nucleus of this ruthless band of criminals was the Barkers.
The mother of the Barker brothers, Herman, Lloyd, Fred and Arthur, was Arizona Barker, commonly known as Kate Barker and many of her friends called her Arrie Barker, but to her sons and their associates she was affectionately known as “Ma” or “Mother.” Kate Barker was born in the vicinity of Ash Grove, Missouri, known as the Ozark country, of Scotch-Irish parents, but it is also said that she had some Indian blood in her veins. She was of an ordinary family and during her early life it appears that she was reared in the vicinity of the place of her birth. On September 14, 1892, as Arrie Clark, Kate was married to George E. Barker, at Ash Grove, Missouri and their early married life was spent at Aurora, Missouri, where their sons were born. About 1903 or 1904 the family moved from Aurora to Webb City, Missouri, where Herman and Lloyd, the elder sons, attended grade schools, and by the time Herman Barker had completed his grade school education, the family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Kate Barker’s sons as early as 1915 encountered difficulty in being law-abiding citizens, as evidenced by the arrest of Herman Barker on March 5, 1915 at Joplin, Missouri on a charge of highway robbery. Fred and Arthur associated with other boys in the vicinity of Old Lincoln Forsythe School, Tulsa, Oklahoma and entered in games and played with the boys around the section known as Central Park. Many of the boys who associated with the sons of Kate Barker later became associates of these boys in their later lives and entered in criminal activities with them. Harry Campbell, and Volney Davis matured and grew up with the sons of Kate Barker and in later years they collectively engaged in lives of crime. Harry Campbell and Volney Davis became prominent members of the Karpis-Barker gang.
Ma Barker in the formative period of her sons’ lives was probably just an average mother of a family which had no aspirations or evidenced no desire to maintain any high plane socially. They were poor and existed through no prolific support from Ma’s husband, George Barker, who was more or less a shiftless individual, but who later profited from the criminal earnings of his wife and sons, but he did not put himself into such a position that he could be later termed a member of the gang. During the time his wife and sons, with other members of their gang, were roving the country perpetrating bank robberies and kidnappings, George Barker was content to remain in the vicinity of Joplin, Missouri and operate a small filling station until such time as he was to share in the estate of his deceased wife and his deceased son, Fred Barker.
The early religious training of the Barkers, as is the case in families of this particular section, was influenced by evangelistic and sporadic revivals. The parents of the Barkers and the other boys with whom they were associated did not reflect any special interest in educational training and as a result their sons were more or less illiterate. Several years prior to Kate Barker’s separation from George Barker, which occurred approximately in the year 1928, and which was subsequent to the time that Herman, Lloyd, and Arthur received prison sentences, it is possible that Kate became loose in her moral life. She was seen with a neighbor of hers who was having outside dates with other men and was known to have been generally in the company of other men in the vicinity of Tulsa, Oklahoma. This led to Kate’s separation from her husband. She lived with her sons at such periods when they were released from their penitentiary sentences and cast her lot with their lawlessness and criminal activities. Inasmuch as she was more intelligent than any of her sons, she ruled them with an iron will and found this expression of dominance easily exerted because of the submission of her sons Fred and Arthur.
Ma Barker liked to live well. She purchased expensive clothing, furniture and other necessities from the spoils of her sons’ depredations.
Ma Barker was very jealous of her boys and did not wish to have them associate with girl friends. She would disclose the conversations had with various women members of the gang to her sons, particularly stressing the women’s statements with reference to them. This procedure on her part caused frequent evidence of dissension among the other women of the gang who, in most instances, made every effort to avoid the presence of Ma Barker.
Although Kate Barker gave most of her attention to her boys, she had a paramour, one Arthur V. Dunlop, alias George Anderson, believed to have met his fate as a result of his association with Kate Barker. Dunlop late in the year 1931 rented a cottage one and one-half miles from Thayer, Missouri, where he lived with Ma Barker and Ma Barker at this time was joined by her son, Fred, who had been released from the Kansas State Penitentiary on March 30, 1931.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation. “History and Early Association of the Karpis-Barker Gang Prior to the Abduction of Mr. Bremer.” November 19, 1936. Available online at FBI: The Vault. https://vault.fbi.gov/barker-karpis-gang/bremer-investigation-summary/Barker-Karpis%20Gang%20Summary%20Part%201%20of%201/view.