America Waldo Bogle

America Waldo Bogle (June 2, 1844 – December 28, 1903) was a pioneer in the Oregon Territory. She and her husband, Richard Arthur Bogle, were among the first Black settlers in Walla Walla, Washington.

Early life America Waldo was born in Missouri on June 2, 1844. Her mother is believed to have been a slave of Missouri farmer John Waldo (1796–1849), and her father was a white man, probably either John Waldo or his brother Joseph (1805–1871). publicly supported the couple and gave them "several gifts of great value with which to start their home." America Waldo Bogle was known as "a lady of estimable character, noted for her deeds of charity to the poor and suffering."

Legacy America and Richard's commitment to hard work and community involvement was continued in subsequent generations of the Bogle family. Examples include: her daughter-in-law Bonnie Bogle (1885–1953) who wrote a regular column in the Seattle Enterprise newspaper and was very active in Portland's civil rights and women's suffrage movements; her granddaughter-in-law Kathryn Bogle (1906–2003), a social worker, activist and freelance journalist in Portland; and her great-grandson, Richard "Dick" Bogle, who became a television newsman and the second African-American city commissioner in Portland, Oregon. America (third from right) and her family by Jeremy Oaki Davis, hangs in the newly dedicated America Waldo Bogle Gallery at the Bush House Museum, Salem Oregon. The America Waldo Bogle Gallery at the Bush House Museum, Salem Oregon. In 2023 Salem Oregon's Bush House Museum (named for its original owner, newspaperman Asahel Bush, and part of Bush's Pasture Park) dedicated one room of the museum as the America Waldo Bogle Gallery. The gallery includes a permanent collection of commissioned paintings by Portland artist Jeremy Okai Davis representing portraits of early Oregon Black pioneers, including one of America and her family. The gallery was named in America's honor "because the stories of nineteenth-century Black women are rarely told, particularly against the legacies of powerful men like Asahel Bush." "Asahel Bush wouldn't have invited America Waldo Bogle… or presumably any future portrait subjects into his home. He didn't regard their lives as worthy of consideration… Thankfully, this is no longer Bush's choice to make."