The First Texas Book Club Began 140 Years Ago, in February 1885, Thanks to Women in Search of 'Intellectual Culture'
It began with nine Houston women, who gathered in the home of Mary Jane Harris Briscoe on February 26, 1885—140 years ago. They formed a club to seek “intellectual and social culture," which they named Ladies’ History Class.
But by April that same year, with about thirty-five members, they'd changed their name to Ladies’ Reading Club, and had drafted a constitution. They wanted to expand their knowledge of art, science, literature, and history, and they began by devoting their first few weeks to studying Egypt, no doubt in a nod to "Egyptomania" that swept Great Britain with the British occupation of Egypt in 1882.
The members soon “determined to so divide the time that one week each month, in regular rotation, should be devoted to the discussion of subjects included under the general heads of Art, Science, Literature, and History.”
They formed a club to seek “intellectual and social culture," which they named Ladies’ History Class.
They assigned themselves topics for papers, which they presented at their meetings. Because Houston had no public library to provide reading materials for their research, the Ladies' Reading Club began acquiring their own. They purchased books and subscribed to periodicals. The members could check out the club’s books for a small fee, used to purchase more materials for their ever-expanding library. By 1895 the club’s library contained 148 books and several volumes of bound magazines, and was outgrowing its shelves.
The city appropriated money in 1899 for a free public library, and the wealthy industrialist Andrew Carnegie agreed to give the city $50,000 for its building. But a lot to build the library on was needed.
Enter the Woman’s Club, the Current Literature Club, the Shakespeare Club, and the Mansfield Dramatic Club, which partnered with the Ladies' Reading Club to form the City Federation of Women’s Clubs. The women raised the money. Federation members sponsored musicals, lectures, ice cream socials, and bazaars. Their efforts, combined with individual gifts, brought in $7,880, used to purchase the property at the corner of McKinney Avenue and Travis Street in 1904.
And thus arose the Houston Lyceum and Carnegie Library, later replaced by what's now the Julia Ideson building of Houston Public Library (in 1926).
In 1929 Stanley Marcus, fresh from his master’s degree in business from Harvard and by then the merchandising manager for his father's and uncle's Dallas ready-to-wear store, had set to work on building the store’s image. He'd already made Neiman Marcus the first department store to hold fashion shows for its customers. And no doubt his customers were topmost in mind when he borrowed a page from the Houston Ladies' Reading Club, and organized what he called the Book Club of Texas.
But it was hardly the first.
Sources: TSHA, Britannica Money
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