Yesterday in Houston there was no River Oaks, Riverside Terrace, Braeswood. South End indicated one's social standing and business connections.
Then South Enders migrated to Montrose, and their places were filled by people from the Heights, North Side, and Down Town.
The migration continues -- people are still moving onward and upward in the social scale. Residents of the older and less desirable sections are moving out to the newer additions. Their old homes are becoming occupied by the next in rank.
Men who held minor positions yesterday, head their own business today, and are among Houston's recognized leaders. Yesterday they lived in modest homes in modest neighborhoods; today they live in beautiful homes in the most select neighborhoods, and their families are growing up in culture and refinement. Because Houston is a small slice of America, and representative of her progress and development.
Seventeen years ago when The Houston Press was established, its readers were principally among these upcoming Americans. The Press was for them; helped them progress and progressed with them; together, moving on and upward. Just another story of American democracy reaching the top.
The Press continued to make improvements, securing a wider and wider acceptance among all the people for its editorial ideals -- its independence and fairness in publishing the news. The accession as editor of The Press, of Mr. M.E. Foster, founder, and for twenty-five years editor of the Chronicle, was the crowning event. With that The Press achieved acceptance in the best homes in every part of Houston -- vying with any Houston paper in its over-all circulation, influence and prestige.
We wonder if you have recognized the full significance of this change in your public, its bearing on and relation to you? Whether you are taking full advantage of this new situation that has developed in less than two years?
We will be glad to go over the facts and figures with you.
The Norman W. Henley Publishing Company was established in 1890 in New York City. It was located at 2 West 45th Street in Manhattan, and advertised that it published “practical books for practical men”. In addition to dozens of titles about the care of automobiles, airplanes, motorcycles and plumbing, it also offered well-written guides to many railway-related topics.
Some of the volumes available in 1920 were:
Air-Brake Catechism, by Robert H. Blackall This textbook covers Westinghouse Air-brake Equipment, including ET, Triple Valve and Cross-Compound Pumps. The operation of all the equipment is explained in detail, and troubleshooting tips are given. It contains 2,000 questions with answers, has 411 pages, and is fully illustrated.
American Compound Locomotives, by Fred H. Colvin The only book currently in print (in 1920) that outlines the various features of compound locomotives in use. It shows how they are made and what to do when they need repair. Contains sections on Baldwin, Tandem, Rogers, Rhode Island, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Schenectady, and Vauclain. It contains 42 pages, and is fully illustrated. It also has 10 ‘Duotone’ inserts on heavy paper, showing different types of Compounds.
Combustion of Coal and the Prevention of Smoke, by William M. Barr This reference book about combustion of common fuels deals primarily with the smokeless combustion of bituminous coal in steam boilers. According to the publisher, "it is arranged as a series of questions to which are appended accurate answers, which describe in non-technical language the processes involved in the furnace combustion of fuels". It contains 350 pages and is fully illustrated.
Diary of a Round-House Foreman, by T.S. Reilly This is the greatest book of railroad experiences ever published, according to the advertisement for it in the 1919 catalog. It ‘contains a fund of information and suggestions along the line of handling men, organizing, etc., that one cannot afford to miss. It has 176 pages and originally sold for $1.25.
Link Motions, Valves and Valve Setting, by Fred H. Colvin This is a handy book for the engineer or machinist, clearing up the intricacies of valve settings. It contains chapters on Slide and Piston Valves, Valve Movements, and Analysis by Diagrams. There is also information about various valve gears such as the Joy-Allen, Walschaert, Gooch, and Alfree-Hubbell.
Locomotive Boiler Construction, by Frank A. Kleinhans This book gives an overview of the construction of boilers in general, and then describes the process of constructing a locomotive boiler as its various parts go through the shop. It gives details manpower required, the lifespan of rivets, punches and dies, and allowances for bending and flanging sheets. It includes recent boiler inspection laws and exam questions with their answers. Some examples of chapters are Plate Planing, Bending, Smoke Box Details, Laying Out Work, Punching, Shearing, Riveting, and Boiler Details. It contains more than 400 pages and five large folding plates.
Locomotive Breakdowns and Their Remedies, by George L. Fowler This is a comprehensive manual that was revised at least eight times to keep up with current technology. It contains chapters on repairing Walschaert Valve Gears, Electric Headlights, Air Brakes and many more components of the working locomotive.
Locomotive Catechism, by Robert Grimshaw No bibliography of railroad books would be complete without mention of this textbook. The publisher’s catalog describes it as “veritable encyclopedia of the locomotive, being free from mathematics, easily understood and thoroughly up-to-date”. The 28th edition, for example, issued in 1919, contained 825 pages, 437 illustrations and 3 folding plates.
Application of Highly Super-Heated Steam to Locomotives, by Robert Garbe This book contains chapters about the generation of superheated steam, the two-cylinder engine, superheating and compounding. It is illustrated with folding plates and many tables.
Practical Instructor and Reference Book for Locomotive Firemen and Engineers, by Charles F. Lockhart Contains 851 questions with their answers, 368 pages and 88 illustrations.
Prevention of Railroad Accidents, or Safety in Railroading, by George Bradshaw This book is illustrated with 70 original photographs and drawings showing safe and unsafe methods of work. It is a pocket-sized volume with 169 pages.
Train Rule Examinations Made Easy, by G.E. Collingwood As nearly all roads require engineers and others to pass regular exams, a complete set of questions with their answers are included. The volume is fully illustrated and contains 256 pages.
The Walschaert and Other Modern Radial Valve Gears for Locomotives, by William W. Wood There are two large folding plates that show the positions of the valves by employing sliding cardboard models that are contained in a pocket in the cover. The volume contains 245 pages and is illustrated.
Westinghouse E-T Air-Brake Instruction Pocket Book, by William W. Wood Profusely illustrated with colored plates, this book makes it easy to trace the flow of pressures throughout all the equipment.
Many of these books have been digitized and are available on the internet. Others are only available in their original covers, and a few are available from Print-On-Demand companies.
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Imagine growing up in Brooklyn, New York in the 1910s; on 53rd Street to be exact, in a house that stands today within a stone’s throw of the I-278 Gowanus Expressway. Imagine you had one pesky little sister, a grandma who lived with you, and a father who worked at a dress factory. What little boy wouldn’t love all of that?
From these early beginnings, James P. Wood developed into a noted writer and editor. He attended Columbia University, graduating in 1933 with an advanced degree. He taught English at the DuPont Manual Training High School in Louisville, Kentucky and later at Amherst College in Massachusetts, where Robert Frost was also a professor.
World War II interrupted Wood’s career, when he served in the offices of the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Air Force from 1943-1946. He became a major and received an Army commendation medal for his efforts. While in Washington he met and married Elizabeth Craig, who was a teacher of French, Latin and Greek.
After the war, Wood became managing editor of the ever-popular Jack and Jill magazine at Curtis Publishing in Philadelphia. He was also a frequent contributor to the Reader’s Digest, Ladies’ Home Journal, Georgia Review, New England Quarterly, and American Scholar. When asked about his career, he said, “if I had not become a writer, I would have been a forester. I have been a factory worker, a helper in a tree nursery, a college professor, an editor and a few other things. I don’t like people too much, as too many of them are too much like me.”
He passed away in 1983 at the age of 77, in Springfield, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy of careful scholarly work as well as hundreds of stories for children. Following is a partial bibliography of his work:
The Presence of Everett Marsh, Bobbs, 1937
“Centenary Series in American Literature”, Funk, 1947-48 Magazines in the United States, Ronald, 1949 (with D.M. Hobart) Selling Forces, Ronald, 1952 The Beckoning Hill, Longmans, 1954 An Elephant in the Family, Nelson, 1957 Of Lasting Interest, Doubleday, 1958 The Story of Advertising, Ronald, 1958 Advertising and the Soul’s Belly: Repetition and Memory in Advertising, University of Georgia Press, 1961 The Queen’s Most Honorable Pirate, Harper, 1961 The Elephant in the Barn, Harper, 1961 A Hound, a Bay Horse, and a Turtle-Dove: A Life of Thoreau for the Young Reader, Pantheon, 1963 Trust Thyself, Pantheon, 1964
Copyright 2013 Marie Brannon
All rights reserved
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“Whereas this Council has learned with deep regret that it has pleased the Almighty in his wisdom to take from our midst one whom it has been the pleasure of the people of this city to honor and one who was universally recognized as a true and worthy man, a tender husband, an affectionate father and a loyal friend; therefore be it Resolved by the city council of the city of Houston that in the death of James H. Pruett we have suffered a loss that will fall heavily on the city and on the family and friends of the deceased – one whose sterling manhood, honesty and true goodness of heart had endeared him to all with whom he was brought into contact and whose loss all must deplore."
Before adjourning for the day, the council ordered that the flag on the market tower be placed at half-mast in respect to the memory of Mr. Pruett, and that the council would attend his funeral as a group.
In order to understand why this man was so revered in Houston, and why a city of 17,000 nearly came to a standstill for his funeral, let’s take a look at his life. James H. Pruett was born in 1854 in Bullock County, Alabama. He grew up and married there, but decided in 1881 to bring his young family to Texas, where he got a job with the International and Great Northern Railroad in Palestine. A year later, he signed on with Houston East and West Texas Railway Company and moved to Houston, where he would spend the rest of his 42 years of life.
At this point, you may be wondering what could be so special about an ordinary railroad worker, but the story takes an interesting turn in 1888. A man of great popularity, public spirited and ambitious, Mr. Pruett accepted a nomination for alderman in the Fifth Ward and was elected a member of the City Council. So efficient were his services in city government that he was re-elected, gave up his position with the railroad and became chief deputy under Sheriff George Ellis. Five years later, he was elected city marshal “by an overwhelming majority over able and popular competitors”.
He was a staunch believer in the Baptist faith and for a long time was superintendent of the Second Baptist Sunday School. He was also a member of the Knights of Pythias, the I.O.O.F, the Knights of Labor and Woodbine Encampment. His last illness was but a short one, but the “tenderest nursing and most skillful medical treatment were unable to drive away the hand of death”.
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On the morning of October 20, the casket was taken from the family home on Williams Street to the Baptist Church on Hardy Street, where “thousands of tear-dimmed eyes looked upon the quiet restful face for the last time. Flowers and floral emblems of the most expensive design were contributed by friends and the occasion was one long to be remembered for the sincere manifestations of grief.”
The impressive cortege of carriages, walkers and horseback riders stretched several blocks as it wound its way through the city to Glenwood Cemetery. It was led by a horse-drawn funeral carriage laden with flowers. Mrs. Pruett and all seven Pruett children followed, along with eighteen pallbearers, both honorary and active, who represented the police department, the Sunday School, the lodges and the family.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Fordyce was like a lot of other cities in Arkansas. It suffered financial setbacks and tried valiantly to keep its down-south heritage intact. Lumber production was cut back at the local sawmill, the Kilgore Hotel sat empty after a fire in 1928, and a couple of banks were closed.
Among a few of the 3,000 citizens, Paul “Bear” Bryant was attending Fordyce High School and playing football for the Red Bugs. A loaf of bread cost a nickel at the Collin & Hampton Grocery Store, Clayton Prince was pastor over at the local Baptist Church, and Carlton Mays was undertaker at the Benton Mortuary.
Due to economic conditions, Mr. Mays and several other businessmen put their heads together and founded the Fordyce Burial Association around 1934. It was a non-profit organization that provided low-cost burials to members who paid membership fees. According to the By-Laws and Regulations, “a person must be in good health and free from any chronic disease to be eligible for membership, and must be from under any doctor’s care”. Maximum benefits were $300 towards a burial (maybe that’s all they cost back then?) and payments ranged from 10c for an infant to $1.50 for anyone aged 61 to 70 years.
There were a bunch of other interesting bylaws, including “the service and casket furnished by the said Fordyce Burial Association shall be up to the standard of, and in keeping with the services and caskets sold by licensed embalmers and funeral directors of this and other towns in this territory”.
Apparently there was a “State of Arkansas regulatory body” that the Secretary was instructed to pay, but there is no indication of any particular agency in Bylaw #9(b). A few paragraphs later, however, the Secretary-Treasurer was empowered to execute documents, papers or instruments to be filed with the State Regulatory body, and such documents would be “forever binding” upon the association when signed by the officer. Maybe it was the Department of Health where they sent death certificates.
Bylaw #14 states that the Funeral Director was to “deliver the casket within the distance of 30 miles of Fordyce without extra charge, roads permitting the use of the hearse”. If the distance was more than that, there would be an extra charge.
Certificate No. 3035 of this Association was issued in September of 1936 and signed by Carlton Mays and Mae Oakmail, who was most likely a clerk. It listed eight members of a single family, for a grand total of $1.70 in assessments. In exchange, they received a total of $680 towards their respective funerals.
After the Depression, the Association was disbanded, but these old certificates are still honored by funeral directors in Fordyce, Arkansas.
Back when Booker T. Washington was making history at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a black Texas minister named W.L. Dickson was busy making phenomenal strides along the same trail.
In 1900, Dickson founded the Dickson Colored Orphanage, Inc. in rural Gilmer, Texas.He had grown up on a plantation in Grimes County and learned the value of hard work.As a young adult in Upshur County, he began to pick up a few “Negro waifs who were wandering the highways and byways” and provide them with food, shelter, clothing, education and job training.He believed, as Booker T. Washington did, that manual training would help Negro youth take their rightful place in society.
By 1920, his modest institution had evolved into a boarding school for 125 homeless Negro inmates on a large sweet potato farm of more than 800 acres.There were more than twenty buildings, including dormitories for different-aged children, a “mess hall kitchen”, tool room or shed, chicken coops, a demonstration building, farm equipment shelters and classrooms.All of these were frame construction heated by wood stoves.They had a water well, pastures for mules and cows, and a steam laundry.When they were not in classrooms or participating in “demonstration work”, students did most of the manual labor as part of their curriculum.
Girls learned the domestic arts such as cooking, sewing, tending to younger children, ironing, milking and serving meals.Rev. Dickson stated that the students were taught to live up to the traditions of the Old South, and that he was not trying to turn out Negro schoolteachers or preachers, but rather Negro servants.Some of the demonstration work involved having the students learn how to wait on white people by serving one another in the classroom.While the meal was in progress, “good manners and perfect decorum” were required of everyone.
Boys were trained in agriculture, carpentry, printing, building repair and electrical work.When they had completed their grammar school training, they were often sent out into the community to bale cotton for local white farmers, as practice for their adult lives.They were also required to learn certain chores such as scrubbing the wooden floors of the buildings, tending the chickens and other animals, and helping the girls with heavy lifting.
According to an article in the Galveston Daily News, hundreds of Negro children who grew up at the orphanage had obtained “respectable” work and gone on to become “outstanding citizens of Texas”.The facility was acquired by the State of Texas in 1931 and became known as the State Colored Orphans Home.
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Known to everybody except his elderly relatives as Tom, Thomas Augustus Fiske was an Irishman by blood, an American by birth and a Southern Californian by choice. He was born on 15 November 1910 near the Canadian border of North Dakota, the son of a physician.
Tom was educated at North Dakota State College (now NDSU), where he majored in Pharmacy. He was associated with pharmaceuticals most of his adult life, working in drug stores in both Wisconsin and Minnesota before settling in the College Heights district of San Diego, California to raise a family.
He rose to the position of superintendent and buyer for a large drug chain before his country called him to service. After three years in the Army, he joined Boyle & Co. of San Diego. He developed a wide range of skills, including compounding prescriptions and buying bulk pharmaceuticals as well as representing his company as a competent spokesman.
Author’s Note: Mr. Fiske died on the 28th of November, 1979 in Los Angeles, at the age of sixty-nine. He was neither famous or infamous, but just an ordinary American who lived an ordinary life. We believe that every life is precious and submit this short documentation of his life as a salute to him and millions of others like him.
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