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| A Women's History Tour of Early Houston
Audrey Crawford is an independent scholar in Houston, with an M.A. in History from the University of Houston. This brief tour highlights stories of pioneer women settling in Houston and the role of women as community leaders during the Progressive Era. 1. Site of Jane Harris house (Frio St., between E. Elm and Cypress) and Glendale Cemetery Jane Harris appears in Texas folklore as the innkeeper of the Republic. Since there were no public buildings in Harrisburg in 1836 when it became the capital of the Republic of Texas, Harris's home provided bed and board for the legislators, as well as the legislative meeting house. John and Jane Harris were one of the original 300 families settled in Texas under Stephen F. Austin's contract with the Mexican government. Jane Harris waited with her family in upstate New York while her husband established their homestead in Texas. John Harris selected the area around the intersection of Braes Bayou and Buffalo Bayou as the headwaters of Buffalo Bayou. He laid out the town in 1826 (about 10 years prior to the Allens' purchase of the Houston area) and claimed that it would become the transportation hub of the Southwest. With his two brothers, he established a trading post and mill. However, John Harris died on a business trip to New Orleans only about two years after he began the settlement. Jane Harris
migrated to Texas four years later, when she was already a widow. Her Jane Harris built a house for herself - and she had to build it twice. When she arrived in Harrisburg, her brother-in-law, David Harris, and his family were living in the house that John Harris had built. Jane Harris selected a plot of land on a "rise" looking over the bayou - still evident at the location of the historical marker. Three years later, her house was burned down, along with the rest of the town, by Santa Anna's troops on their way to the Battle of San Jacinto. When she returned after the defeat of the Mexican army, she rebuilt a bigger and fancier house in the same location. Like many other single women pioneers Jane Harris operated her household as a boardinghouse for travelers passing through the town. During the Civil War, her house served as a hospital for Confederate soldiers. Jane Harris established a female dynasty in Houston. Her daughter Mary Jane Harris and her grand-daughter Adele Briscoe Looscan would become community leaders in key women's organizations that founded institutions for social services and cultural opportunities as Houston grew into a city. Mary Jane Harris arrived from New York around 1837, age 17. Within a year, she married Andrew Briscoe, a hero of the Texas Revolution, Chief Justice of Harris County, and a merchant in Houston. After Andrew Briscoe died, Mary Jane Briscoe moved in with her mother in Harrisburg and the two women lived together until Jane Harris died in 1869. Then, Mary Jane Harris moved to Houston to be with her daughter Adele Briscoe Looscan. The family cemetery - now Glendale Cemetery - embodies the vision the city founders had. It is surrounded by railroad tracks, an oil refinery, and the ship channel - the major industries that made Houston into a great city. At the far northeast corner of the cemetery, situated right on the bayou bank is the Harris-Birdsall plot. Jane Harris is buried here with the people who migrated with her daughter to Harrisburg in 1836: her father Lewis Birdsall, her brother Dr. Maurice L. Birdsall, and a cousin John Birdsall. A large slab on the ground marks the grave of her daughter Mary Jane Briscoe. Her husband, Harrisburg founder John Harris, who is actually buried in New Orleans, is memorialized with a slab erected in his honor by their granddaughter Adele Briscoe Looscan. The not-for-profit Glendale Cemetery Association manages Glendale Cemetery, so, in order to get into the gate, you must make an appointment by calling the Association. Their phone number changes depending on their current officers, so find it in a current phone book. The view is stunning without entering the cemetery, but you will not be able to see the gravesites without going in. 2. Site of Charlotte Baldwin Allen's house, NW corner of Main and Rusk Augustus and John Kirby Allen had wanted to buy the Harrisburg property, but were discouraged by the unsettled condition of property titles in the wake of John Harris's death and the Texas Revolution. They went north about 5 miles (as the crow flies), and selected the intersection of White Oak and Buffalo Bayou as the headwaters of Buffalo Bayou. They platted a town and declared that it would be the transportation hub of the Southwest. Two women
were key participants in the founding of Houston: Mrs. Austin-Parrott,
who, along with her husband, had been one of the original 300 families
in Austin's settlement, sold the property to the Allens. Augustus Allen's
wife Charlotte Baldwin Allen probably provided significant funds from
her family inheritance for the purchase of the land. Although their families became prominent Houstonians, the two Allen brothers did not remain long in the city. John Kirby Allen died in 1838. He is buried in the Old City Cemetery at the corner of W. Dallas and Valentine Street. Charlotte Allen's husband Augustus Allen left Houston in the 1840s to go to Mexico, where he engaged in business and had an appointment as a U.S. consul at various ports there. He never returned to Houston and died in 1864 in Washington, D.C. Charlotte
Allen became the only one of the founding trio that remained in Houston.
She lived in Houston from her arrival in the mid-1830s until her death
in 1895. The site of her home at Main and Rusk is on the National Historic
Register and is marked with a historical marker. Presently on the site
is the 36-story Morgan Chase building. Built by Jesse Jones in 1929, this
building remained the tallest building in Houston until 1963. It was originally
called the Gulf Building, then the Chase Bank building. Now, the Morgan
Chase building. 3. The Scanlan Building, 405 Main St. Built by Kate Scanlan and her sisters in 1909, the Scanlan building is one of at least two early downtown skyscrapers that were built by Houston businesswomen (the other one is the Esperson building). The seven Scanlan sisters, Kate, Stella, Lillian, Roberta, Charlotte, Carrie, and "M.E.," inherited vast amounts of real estate and oil wells from their father T.H. Scanlan, a radical mayor of Houston in the post-Civil War years 1870-74. The sisters shared their father's inheritance, and none of them ever married - generating a popular rumor (denied by a family spokesperson) that remaining single was a condition for sharing the inheritance. When Stella, the last surviving sister, died in 1950 their extensive wealth was bequeathed to Catholic institutions, most notably St. Thomas University, and to the Scanlan Foundation. In addition to the Scanlan building, the sisters owned the Ritz theater building, a block on Congress Street, a store building in the 400 block of Main, plus numerous oil fields and property in Galveston. The eleven-story building was the tallest in Houston at the time of its completion. 4. Christ Church Cathedral, Texas and Fannin Christ Church Cathedral is the site of the earliest, still-extant woman's parish association. The church is famous as the oldest church in Houston still on its original site. The congregation has occupied this site since 1845. The existing building is comprised of several parts that were constructed at different times. The earliest part dates from the 1890s. The church is beautifully architected, with its front and side gardens, stained glass windows, and dark wood interior accented with needlework by the women of the church. Although the church building is locked during the week, it is proud of its historic identity and offers tours following the 11:00 am Sunday service, or you may arrange one by calling the church office. Many women workers and founders are memorialized via stained glass windows in the church. The stained glass windows include a Tiffany window. The windows are separated by gender, the windows on the left-hand side dedicated to women, the ones on the right-hand side to men, which possibly reflects the former custom of seating women and men in separate groups in the church. The women of the church became an important resource for the church as early as 1848 when, as reported in the vestry minutes, the "Ladies of the Church" raised money to clear the church debts and to pay the rector. In 1859, the vestry called upon the women again to raise funds in order to pay the minister's salary. An early women's group, the Ladies Sewing Circle raised funds to take over the management of an old school building, which they renovated and opened as a Sunday school. The Ladies
Parish Association (known today as the LPA) was founded in 1871, continuing
the tradition of raising funds to support and enhance the church facilities.
The LPA was founded specifically to take care of needy people in the community
at a time when there were no public social service agencies. In 1893,
a committee of the LPA founded the Sheltering Arms Association to provide
a home for elderly women. Mary Jane Harris Briscoe was active in the LPA
and was the first president of this Association. Sheltering Arms continues
today as a United Way agency providing services for senior citizens. 5. Incarnate Word Academy, 1611 Capitol Ave. An early educational institution established by women for women was the Academy of the Incarnate Word. Three nuns, led by Mother M. Gabriel Dillon, from the French order the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, established this school. It has been on this site since 1874. The brick building dates from 1905. This group of nuns is the same group that established St. Joseph hospital. Although
it's the oldest still extant girls' school in Houston, the Incarnate Word
Academy was not the earliest school for young ladies in Houston. Mary
B. Brown opened her Young Ladies' Seminary and Day School in the 1840s
on property she owned on Franklin Street near Caroline. By 1860, she had
moved to McKinney and Caroline, where her school taught many prominent
Houstonians, including Adele Briscoe Looscan, a founder of the Ladies'
Reading Club; Elizabeth Fitzsimmons Ring, a founder of the Houston Museum
of Fine Arts; and Mrs. Phillip Fall, a founder of the Ladies' Parish Association
at Christ Church. The site is now a parking lot in the George R. Brown
complex. Across Crawford
Street from Incarnate Word Academy is an historical marker indicating
the site of this home. Briscoe came to Houston from Harrisburg in 1869,
and lived at this site from 1880 until her death in 1903. She shared this
house with her daughter and son-in-law, Adele Briscoe and Michael Looscan,
as well as her son, lumber dealer Parmenas Briscoe. The founding of the Ladies' Reading Club by Mary Jane Briscoe and Adele Briscoe Looscan marks the beginning of the women's club movement in Houston. During the Progressive Era, women all over the country rode a wave of sentiment that assigned to them the right, privilege, and responsibility of establishing and managing institutions that ensured the well being of their communities. During this period, women founded kindergartens, settlement houses that provided day care and education for working class people, boardinghouses and lunchrooms for working women. They organized city cleanup campaigns, and fought for pure food laws. The General Federation of Women's Clubs organized in the early 1890s and shepherded a plethora of local organizations across the country that formed during this period. The Ladies' Reading Club was a charter member of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs (TFWC), which formed in 1897. This group, along with the Woman's Club of Houston began their public life by organizing the women's clubs of the city to establish a public library - ultimately founding the Houston Public Library system. Adele Briscoe Looscan (Jane Harris's grand-daughter) was the 3rd Vice President on the first slate of officers of the TFWC, and was the first president of the Houston City Federation of Women's Clubs. As a writer and local historian, she participated in the founding of the Texas State Historical Society and the Texas Folklore Society, providing numerous articles in journals such as the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 6. State headquarters of the Texas Grand Court, Order of Calanthe, 2411 Dowling St. In Houston's segregated world, black women formed organizations to meet the needs of their communities. Besides church groups, one of the earliest types of organizations black people formed to address their financial and health needs were fraternal organizations. Fraternal
orders taught - and expected their members to adhere to - the middle-class
values of industriousness, frugality, and morality. They were hierarchical
organizations, which gave their members a sense of self-esteem and prestige
as they moved through the ranks of membership. Scholars propose that fraternal
organizations were a primary mechanism for developing middle-class values
among black people before and after emancipation. Fraternal groups were primarily male-only clubs, but women participated based on the membership of a male member of their family, and, beginning around the 1890s women began to organize their own independent lodges. This was a long process of redefining the rules of the organization so women could be members in their own right and could define their own regalia and rituals. The fourth Texas court of the Court of Calanthe, called Hermione #4, was organized in Houston in 1895 at one of the downtown black fraternal buildings. The founding of Hermione #4 provided the requisite number of chapters to enabling founding a state Grand Court in Texas. Successful organizations accumulated considerable financial resources, and the Court of Calanthe became one of the most prosperous fraternal organizations in Texas. It maintained its membership and assets even through the 1930s Depression when numerous other lodges failed. During the Depression, the Court of Calanthe lent $46,000 to Paul Quinn College for building construction and to members to pay their taxes. In the tradition black-owned fraternal buildings, the Court of Calanthe building houses a barbershop and other professional offices. 7. Married Ladies' Social, Art, and Charity Club clubhouse, 1814 Southmore Besides fraternal organizations, black women formed neighborhood clubs for self-education and charity work. The Married Ladies' Social, Art, and Charity club is the earliest, still-existing black women's club in Houston. A gathering of fourteen women, invited by Mary Crawford and Melissa Price, initiated the club at Mary Crawford's house at 1014 Hill Street in 3rd Ward in 1902. The Married Ladies' Club did not federate, but the 1906 Art and Literary Club formed a few years later for the purpose of federating with the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. These groups offered financial and other support to unwed mothers, to sick people in their neighborhoods; and they offered scholarships to students. 8. Site of the Covington House, 2219 Dowling St. The Covington house, built in 1911 on the corner of Dowling and Hadley in Third Ward was the site of many social events, and it hosted many prominent black visitors to Houston during a time when blacks were barred from Houston hotels. It was the home of Jennie and Dr. Benjamin Covington. Jennie Covington was born in 1881 in Clinton, DeWitt County, Texas. She attended Guadalupe College in Seguin, working as a seamstress for the college president. She married Dr. Benjamin Jesse Covington in 1902 in Seguin, and they moved to Houston a year later. Within a few years, Benjamin Covington and four other black physicians founded Union hospital (later, Riverside General), filling a pressing need, since blacks previously had had to travel to Galveston to receive hospital services. Jennie Covington supported her husband's hospital through the women's auxiliary, and she joined the Married Ladies Social, Art, and Charity Club and the 1906 Art and Literary Club. She was a founder of the Bethlehem Settlement in 1917, which provided day care and clubs for boys and girls. In 1920, she established the Blue Triangle Branch of the YWCA. She also took a lead in addressing race relations in the 1920s as co-founder and first head of the Houston Commission on Interracial Cooperation and chair of the Negro Women's Division of the Texas Commission on Interracial Cooperation. In the 1950s she was still active, on the Board of the Negro Child Center. She was a member of Antioch Baptist Church and was associated with two fraternal organizations, the Court of Calanthe, and the Household of Ruth. Jennie Covington died in 1966, and, in spite of an effort to restore the house as an historical site, it was razed in 1980, and the empty lot is all that is currently marked with an historical marker. 9. Julia Ideson Building, 500 McKinney Ave. An architectural historian claimed that the Julia Ideson building is "among Houston's most notable public monuments." It is commonly known as "the old building across the plaza from the Central Library. The Julia Ideson building was supposed to be the keystone of a civic center, including a City Hall and other government buildings. This concept never materialized, although City Hall was built across the street. The Julia Ideson building is the 2nd public library building in Houston. The Houston
Public Library System was a project of the City Federation of Women's
Clubs. In 1899, Belle Sherman Kendall and Mamie Gearing of the Ladies'
Reading Club solicited funds from Andrew Carnegie for the construction
of a city library building. When Carnegie agreed to donate $50,000 toward
the building construction, the women's clubs of the city spearheaded a
drive for funds to purchase the site for the new building. The Ladies'
Reading Club and the Woman's Club called together the existing women's
clubs of the city to form the City Federation of Women's Clubs to carry
out this campaign. Adele Briscoe Looscan was elected the first president
of the City Federation. Born in Nebraska,
Julia Ideson had gone to school in Houston and had just graduated from
the University of Texas in the first Library Science class in 1904. She
was 24 years old when she became the Director of the Houston Public Library.
In the course of her over-40-year career, Ideson increased the library
book collection over twenty-fold, initiated community programs to circulate
books, and in the 1920s oversaw the construction of several branch libraries.
She remained active in civic and political groups, including the Woman's
Political Union, the Texas Woman's Fair, the League of Women Voters, the
Texas Interracial Commission, and the Texas Library Association. The interior is decorated with murals by three different women artists. Angela MacDonnell painted the mural in the west hall on the first floor in 1934 as part of a WPA project. McDonnell was born in Galveston and studied at the Metropolitan in New York, at the Chicago Art Institute, and in Spain. She was a well-known artist and art teacher in Houston in the 1930s and 40s, with a studio and gallery at her house at 903 Stuart Street. Her sojourn in Spain clearly had a significant influence on her. Her art typically included Spanish themes. The collection at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts includes a watercolor, "Pamplona, Spain." The mural
on the east stairwell commemorating the founding of the Lyceum is by Ruth
Uhler. (Notice that she imagined women and children as part of the founding
of the male-only society in 1854.) Uhler was from Pennsylvania and graduated
from the Pennsylvania School of Design for Women. She became a teacher
at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in 1937, and by 1957 had become the
curator of education at the Museum. She was best known for stylized and
abstract landscape paintings. Her work was exhibited at the Houston Museum
of Fine Arts, as well as in museums in Pennsylvania, New Orleans, and
Dallas. Two rooms are named after women. Harriet Reynolds Dickson began her career in 1924 as the children's librarian and the supervisor of library branches. She was the Director of the Houston Public Library from 1950 to1967. The children's room is named after Norma Meldrum, the only daughter of a benefactor of the library. Norma Meldrum had died in 1899 at age nine, and her family's significant financial contributions in her memory enabled the development of resources for children at the public library. 10. Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum, 1314 Andrews St. The Rutherford
B. H. Yates house is a preservation project by the Rutherford B. H. Yates
Museum, Inc. in the historic area of Fourth Ward. Fourth Ward became known as Freedmanstown in the 1860s after emancipation, when many black people followed the road (W. Dallas today; formerly San Felipe) to Houston and settled as close as they could to the city. Because of this immigration to the city Houston had a black population that was almost 40% from the 1860s until 1920. Black leaders in Houston encouraged the people to buy land, and a high proportion of black people in Houston - relative to other cities - became homeowners. Through the 1930s this was a very active community, with many local businesses and a high percentage of residences and homeowners. Many homeowners lost title to their land during the Depression, and the neighborhood was further devastated by the construction of I-45, which cut it in half. Today this area is highly distressed, with many vacant lots and old homes that look dilapidated. The Rutherford B. H. Yates house belonged to an African American printer who was a prominent businessman in Fourth Ward. The Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum bought this property and is in the process of renovating it to be open to the public as a museum about black history. The Museum has been renovating with meticulous attention to the details of the original house construction and furnishing. Yates is an important name to remember for understanding early black history in Houston. Reverend Jack Yates, the first black minister of Antioch Baptist Church, and later the founder of Bethel Baptist Church, was a well-known leader in the late 19th century black community. Rutherford B. H. Yates built his house next door to that of his father, Rev. Jack Yates. Jack Yates' house has been moved to Sam Houston Park. Olee Yates McCullough, daughter of Rutherford B. H. Yates, has been instrumental in the preservation project. She grew up in the house now under reconstruction, and before her death in 1996, she provided details about the house and its furnishings to the Museum founders. McCullough graduated from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas and got an M.A. in education from Columbia in 1947. Both she and her husband worked as teachers for HISD. Olee McCullough remained active in church and her community until her death and was particularly concerned with preserving the history of African Americans in Houston, in which her family played so prominent a part. Besides her work with the Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum, she and her sister Johnnie Yates Rice published a biography of their grandfather Jack Yates that had been composed by their father Rutherford B.H. Yates and their uncle Paul L. Yates. Some other black citizens who characterized the leadership who lived in Fourth Ward at the turn of the 20th century included: Mariah Sharkie (1013 Andrews St.) was a founding member of the Woman's Convention of the Baptist Church in Texas, established at Antioch in 1886. Sharkie became treasurer at the founding convention and was active for the next 50 years. She wrote a history of the Woman's Convention in 1940. The Woman's Convention supported black churches and schools throughout Texas and helped create homes for orphans. Pearl Lights (819 Andrews St.) started the Daily Bible Kindergarten at Antioch in 1910. This was the first kindergarten for black children in Houston. Lights died only a couple of years later, but the kindergarten endured and educated many prominent black people. Pauline Lewis Lubin (1216 Wilson St.) was the 2nd librarian at Carnegie Colored Library. Lubin was a trustee at Antioch, a member of the NAACP, and an organizer for the Texas Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. She earned a B.S. from Prairie View in 1931. Her husband was attorney J. Vance Lewis. For more about women in Houston, see Betty Trapp Chapman, Houston Women: Invisible Threads in the Tapestry (Virginia Beach: The Donning Company Publishers, 2000). |
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