BROOKS, MINERVA KLINE (1893-5 May 1929) campaigned for suffrage for WOMEN in the 1910s, helped organize the precursor of the CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE (1915), and introduced interpretive dance in both Cleveland and New York City. Born in Cleveland to Virgil P. Kline (attorney to JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER) and Minerva E. Cozens Kline, she graduated from HATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL (1899) and from Vassar College (1903). On 12 October 1907 Brooks married writer CHARLES S. BROOKS. In 1910 she became a charter member of the Cleveland chapter of the National College Equal Suffrage League. Brooks belonged to the Cleveland Suffrage Association, presided over the Cleveland Suffrage Party (1914), and published articles on suffrage in local newspapers. She participated in the successful effort to attain municipal suffrage for women in EAST CLEVELAND in 1914. In the fall of 1915 Brooks and her husband invited 8 friends to their home on E. 115 Street to discuss formation of an Art Theatre; in November 1915 the organization elected her as secretary. In May 1916, Brooks participated in the first production of the Cleveland Play House, a puppet show. Late in 1916, Minerva and Charles Brooks left Cleveland for New York City, he to pursue his literary career and she to expand her interest in dance. They later returned to their hometown but Minerva Brooks divided her time between locales. In the fall of 1919, the New York Times called her "an exponent of interpretive dance"; in the early 1920s, with Winifred Lawrence Ingersoll, she taught interpretive dance at the Cleveland branch of the Noyes School of Rhythm. In 1925 Brooks and her husband divorced. At her death Brooks lived on Beacon Street in Boston.
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