The publisher printed nothing else before or since. Just as homes and churches depicted in “The Red Book” have been lost to time, so have the names of those responsible for creating the book and the motives they held for its publication - an expensive endeavor that cost $80 per copy in today’s currency. But it can be so useful for people to have.” “No one really has time to do that detailed work when they’re in the middle of researching. “We're trying to help people find the things that they might need,” said Guthrie. Future researchers can use this wealth of data to continue exploring “The Red Book” with geographic information system software and other tools. Their work has been made available online for free in the form of geospatial mapping data. Now, over 900 of those names and addresses have been extracted from “The Red Book” in an ambitious undertaking by Rice archivists and students. “The Red Book” teems with photos, essays, poetry, histories and business directories, boasting hundreds of local listings for everything from physicians and attorneys to ice cream parlors and picture shows.Ī wedding photograph of James Pendleton and Lillie Bell Price Pendleton from "The Red Book of Houston." “It was a very powerful statement for them to make this book,” Guthrie said. A wedding photograph of James Pendleton and Lillie Bell Price Pendleton notes their ceremony “was among the most important that Houston has produced, being attended by white and colored en masse.” Originally printed on glossy stock, the book showcases the personal and professional lives of the city’s most prominent Black citizens: bankers and businessmen, preachers and schoolteachers, their extensive educations enumerated and their portraits taken in front of their churches or homes. “The Red Book” is recognized by researchers as unique in its comprehensive and creative celebration of Black life over a century ago. “We could find nothing comparable to it anywhere,” said Norie Guthrie, an archivist and special collections librarian in Fondren Library’s Woodson Research Center. “ The Red Book of Houston: A Compendium of Social, Professional, Religious, Educational and Industrial Interests of Houston's Colored Population” - published just once, in 1915 - offers a detailed depiction of Black middle- and upper-class life in the Bayou City at a time of both triumph and trial. There’s no book like it in any other American city, from any other time period. "The Red Book of Houston" shows midwife Annie Hagen with two of her properties on Hobson St.
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