Woman's Club of El Paso | |
Woman's Club Building, 2008 | |
Location | 1400 N. Mesa St., El Paso, Texas |
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Coordinates | 31°46′2″N106°29′40″W / 31.76722°N 106.49444°W Coordinates: 31°46′2″N106°29′40″W / 31.76722°N 106.49444°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1916 |
Architect | Otto Thorman |
Architectural style | Beaux Arts, Georgian |
NRHP reference No. | 79002935 [1] |
Added to NRHP | July 22, 1979 |
The Woman's Club of El Paso was founded in the late nineteenth century, and during that time was the only woman's organization in El Paso, Texas. [2] The Woman's Club also allowed women in El Paso to become involved in community service and activism. [3] The building which is the home for the club is located on 1400 N. Mesa Drive, and was erected in 1916. [2] The club, now a non-profit organization, traces its official origins back to 1894, and continues to provide an "educational and cultural center for its members." [4] The building is registered in the National Register of Historic Places. [5]
Mary Hamilton Mills arrived in El Paso with her husband, William Wallace Mills on March 8, 1869. [6] Mills began to create a social circle, which started to meet in 1881 and included Flora Hague, Octavia Magoffin, Olga Kohlberg, Eugenia Schuster, Carrie Fewel, Lemire Morehead, Elizabeth Irvin, Margaret Beall, Eliza Berrien, Laura Loomis, Carrie Race, Maude Austin, Harriet Shelton, Frances McCutcheon, Rebecca Falvey, Mary Voss, Carrie Sutherland and other important women in El Paso. [7] Members of the group met at various locations in El Paso. [2] First, they called the group the Child Culture Study Circle. [8] The club was organized in 1894, [9] first meeting in Mills' home on San Francisco Street. [7] Mills was the unofficial president until 1895, when she was officially elected as president of the club, which was known at the time as The Current Topics Club. [10] The club later changed its name to the Woman's Club of El Paso in 1899. [11]
The Woman's Club decided to create a permanent building for the club in 1915, raising club dues and appealing to local businesses for donations in order to get funding. [12] The clubhouse was designed by the architect, Otto H. Thorman and construction began in 1916. [2] The building was the first free-standing woman's clubhouse in the state of Texas. [13] The clubhouse was officially opened on November 8, 1916. [11]
Members of the Woman's Club were involved in the establishment of Texas's first public school kindergarten. [3] The club, led by one of the Woman's Club presidents, Olga Kohlberg, worked to get a kindergarten established in the first school building in El Paso, Central School, in 1893. [14] Kohlberg also helped establish the first hospital in El Paso, [15] by creating the Ladies' Benevolent Association. [16] Members of the club were also heavily involved in establishing the El Paso Public Library. [3] Mary Irene Stanton, who was the first president of the El Paso Library Association in 1895, was elected the Woman's Club vice-president that same year. [10] Stanton created the first children's library in the United States. [3] By 1913, El Paso had "over thirty women's organizations," though most were social in nature, and contrasted with the "civic and humanitarian objectives" of the Woman's Club. [17] Another president of the club, Eugenia Schuster, helped refugees from the Mexican Revolution in 1916, working with Amigos Listos. [3] The club worked to get safe food and public sanitation laws passed and also worked to protect San Jacinto Plaza. [3]
The Woman's Club of El Paso hosts annually a Fall Festival to raise money for the preservation of the clubhouse, a holiday Wassail party and also a Spring Celebration. [11] Auxiliary groups to the Woman's Club are the Arts and Crafts Study Club, the Book Club and the Junior Woman's Club of El Paso. [11] The Junior Woman's Club was founded 1934 and works with local charities to help improve the community of El Paso. [18] The club's building can be used as a venue for local events. [11] The club also "regularly features and supports local artists." [19]
Trost & Trost Architects & Engineers, often known as Trost & Trost, was an architecture firm based in El Paso, Texas. The firm's chief designer was Henry Charles Trost, who was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1860. Trost moved from Chicago to Tucson, Arizona in 1899 and to El Paso in 1903. He partnered with Robert Rust to form Trost & Rust. Rust died in 1905 and later that year Trost formed the firm of Trost & Trost with his twin brother Gustavus Adolphus Trost, also an architect, who had joined the firm as a structural engineer. Between 1903 and Henry Trost's death on September 19, 1933, the firm designed hundreds of buildings in the El Paso area and in other Southwestern cities, including Albuquerque, Phoenix, Tucson, and San Angelo.
The Plaza Hotel, formerly the Hilton Hotel, is a landmark skyscraper located at 106 Mills Avenue in El Paso, Texas, USA.
William Beaumont Army Medical Center is a Department of Defense medical facility located in El Paso, Texas. It provides comprehensive care to all beneficiaries including active duty military, their family members, and retirees. The hospital is located in the Central/Northeastern part of El Paso. and provides emergency department services for Northeast El Paso.
Sunset Heights is a historic area in El Paso, Texas; which has existed since the latter part of the 1890s. Many wealthy residents have had their houses and mansions built on this hill. Although some buildings have been renovated to their former glory, many have been neglected and have deteriorated. An organization, the Sunset Heights Improvement Association helps neighbors on a fixed income to manage home maintenance and also sponsors an annual tour.
Olga Bernstein Kohlberg was a Jewish Texan philanthropist and founder of the first public kindergarten in Texas. Kohlberg served as president of the Woman's Club of El Paso for two terms, one from 1899-1900 and the other from 1901-1902. Kohlberg lived in the historic Sunset Heights neighborhood.
The Landmark Inn State Historic Site is a historic inn in Castroville, Texas, United States. It serves the general public as both a state historic site and a bed & breakfast with eight overnight rooms.
Eugenia Mananyi Schuster (1865-1946) was a community activist in El Paso, Texas, and one of the presidents of the Woman's Club of El Paso. She was also the founder of the El Paso Pan-American Round Table.
The Texas Federation of Women's Clubs (TFWC) is a non-profit women's organization in Texas which was founded in 1897. The purpose of the group is to create a central organization for women's clubs and their members in Texas relating to education, the environment, home and civic life, the arts and Texas history. Seventy-percent of public libraries in Texas were created through the work of the members and clubs of the TFWC.
The Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) was an organization founded in 1903 to support white women's suffrage in Texas. It was originally formed under the name of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association (TWSA) and later renamed in 1916. TESA did allow men to join. TESA did not allow black women as members, because at the time to do so would have been "political suicide." The El Paso Colored Woman's Club applied for TESA membership in 1918, but the issue was deflected and ended up going nowhere. TESA focused most of their efforts on securing the passage of the federal amendment for women's right to vote. The organization also became the state chapter of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). After women earned the right to vote, TESA reformed as the Texas League of Women Voters.
Indiana State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, also known as the Minor House, is a historic National Association of Colored Women's Clubs clubhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. The two-and-one-half-story "T"-plan building was originally constructed in 1897 as a private dwelling for John and Sarah Minor; however, since 1927 it has served as the headquarters of the Indiana State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, a nonprofit group of African American women. The Indiana federation was formally organized on April 27, 1904, in Indianapolis and incorporated in 1927. The group's Colonial Revival style frame building sits on a brick foundation and has a gable roof with hipped dormers. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
Kate Moore Brown was an American musician, clubwoman and traveler who lived in El Paso, Texas. Brown was one of the first graduates of El Paso High School. She was the first person to teach music in the public schools in Texas and El Paso and was the first woman to own a bicycle in El Paso. Brown is also one of the original creators of the El Paso International Museum which later became the El Paso Museum of Art.
The Phillis Wheatley Clubs are women's clubs created by African Americans starting in the late 1800s. The first club was founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1895. Some clubs are still active. The purpose of Phillis Wheatley Clubs varied from area to area, although most were involved in community and personal improvement. Some clubs helped in desegregation and voting rights efforts. The clubs were named after the poet Phillis Wheatley.
Otto H. Thorman was an American architect. He designed many houses in the Manhattan Heights neighborhood of El Paso, Texas as well as several buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places like the Woman's Club of El Paso and Goddard Hall on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Maud E. Craig Sampson Williams was an American suffragist, teacher, civil rights leader, and community activist in El Paso, Texas. In June 1918, she formed the El Paso Negro Woman's Civic and Equal Franchise League and requested membership in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) through the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA), but was denied. Williams organized African-American women to register and vote in the Texas Democratic Party primary in July 1918. She was one of the founders and a charter member of the El Paso chapter of the NAACP, which was the first chapter in the state of Texas. Williams served as the vice president of the El Paso chapter from 1917 to 1924 and remained active in the NAACP until her death. Williams played a significant role in the desegregation of Texas Western College in 1955, which was the first undergraduate university in Texas to be desegregated.
Women's suffrage in Texas was a long term fight starting in 1868 at the first Texas Constitutional Convention. In both Constitutional Conventions and subsequent legislative sessions, efforts to provide women the right to vote were introduced, only to be defeated. Early Texas suffragists such as Martha Goodwin Tunstall and Mariana Thompson Folsom worked with national suffrage groups in the 1870s and 1880s. It wasn't until 1893 and the creation of the Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA) by Rebecca Henry Hayes of Galveston that Texas had a statewide women's suffrage organization. Members of TERA lobbied politicians and political party conventions on women's suffrage. Due to an eventual lack of interest and funding, TERA was inactive by 1898. In 1903, women's suffrage organizing was revived by Annette Finnigan and her sisters. These women created the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) in Houston in 1903. TESA sponsored women's suffrage speakers and testified on women's suffrage in front of the Texas Legislature. In 1908 and 1912, speaking tours by Anna Howard Shaw helped further renew interest in women's suffrage in Texas. TESA grew in size and suffragists organized more public events, including Suffrage Day at the Texas State Fair. By 1915, more and more women in Texas were supporting women's suffrage. The Texas Federation of Women's Clubs officially supported women's suffrage in 1915. Also that year, anti-suffrage opponents started to speak out against women's suffrage and in 1916, organized the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS). TESA, under the political leadership of Minnie Fisher Cunningham and with the support of Governor William P. Hobby, suffragists began to make further gains in achieving their goals. In 1918, women achieved the right to vote in Texas primary elections. During the registration drive, 386,000 Texas women signed up during a 17-day period. An attempt to modify the Texas Constitution by voter referendum failed in May 1919, but in June 1919, the United States Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment. Texas became the ninth state and the first Southern state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on June 28, 1919. This allowed white women to vote, but African American women still had trouble voting, with many turned away, depending on their communities. In 1923, Texas created white primaries, excluding all Black people from voting in the primary elections. The white primaries were overturned in 1944 and in 1964, Texas's poll tax was abolished. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, promising that all people in Texas had the right to vote, regardless of race or gender.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Texas. Women's suffrage was brought up in Texas at the first state constitutional convention, which began in 1868. However, there was a lack of support for the proposal at the time to enfranchise women. Women continued to fight for the right to vote in the state. In 1918, women gained the right to vote in Texas primary elections. The Texas legislature ratified the 19th amendment on June 29, 1919, becoming the ninth state and the first Southern state to ratify the amendment. While white women had secured the vote, Black women still struggled to vote in Texas. In 1944, white primaries were declared unconstitutional. Poll taxes were outlawed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, fully enfranchising Black women voters.
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