{"id":258,"date":"2020-01-14T22:44:33","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T22:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/?page_id=258"},"modified":"2020-02-25T13:12:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T13:12:35","slug":"teaching-in-houston","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/about\/teaching-in-houston\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching in Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Harper graduated from the AIC in 1901\nwith \u201csecond honors\u201d.[1]<\/sup><\/a>  Following his graduation, Harper accepted a\nposting with the Houston public schools in Houston, Texas.  At this time, the schools in Houston were\ndivided into white schools and \u201cColored Schools\u201d.  As a foreshadowing of Harper\u2019s arrival in\nHouston, the Superintendent of the Independent School District of Houston, W.W.\nBarnett, wrote in the Annual Report of the Superintendent regarding \u201cThe\nColored Schools\u201d for the year 1900-1901, that <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring the coming year I hope the Board\nwill be able to secure the services of a thoroughly trained teacher of drawing\nand writing.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On September 4, 1901, the Houston Daily\nPost announced the appointment of Harper as that drawing and writing instructor\nfor the \u201cColored Schools\u201d.  Harper was\nnot the first AIC graduate to work for the Houston public schools.  When Harper arrived in Houston, he joined\nBlanche Williams who was already the \u201cdirectress\u201d for drawing in the white\npublic schools.  Williams had graduated\nfrom the AIC the year before Harper, and she and Harper had shared classes at\nthe AIC.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Houston City Directory for the years\n1902-1903 listed Harper as \u201cHarper, William (c), director of drawing and\nwriting Houston (c) public school, bds 302 [?] Andrews\u201d.[4]<\/sup><\/a>  The designation \u201c(c)\u201d depicted race, and\n\u201cbds\u201d presumably meaning Harper was a boarder at the referenced address.  Records are not available from the individual\n\u201cColored Schools\u201d of those years, but it is probably safe to assume that Harper\nserved as the drawing and writing instructor for all of such Houston\nschools.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harper must have impressed\nSuperintendent Barnett because he took the time after Harper\u2019s first year of\nteaching to write to the Director of the AIC, W.M.R. French, praising Harper\u2019s\nwork.[5]<\/sup><\/a>  Barnett\u2019s letter has not survived, but on\nAugust 28, 1902, French wrote to Harper, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have received a letter from Prof.\nBarnett expressing his satisfaction with your work.  I am highly pleased to hear of your\nsuccess.  It was, however, a matter of\ncourse with your attainments and habits. \nI think you are in a way of doing a great deal of good both\nprofessionally and socially.  We hope you\nmay some day pay us a visit.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

French then went on to discuss the\nlatest happenings at the Institute. \nGiven the number of students who passed through the Institute, a letter\nof this nature from the Director is an impressive indication of the esteem with\nwhich Harper was held by the Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harper taught in the Houston public school system for two years.  Although certainly engaged with classes, Harper was nevertheless artistically busy during that time period.  In early 1902, he had three paintings accepted in the annual juried Exhibition of Works by Chicago Artists, an exhibition jointly managed by the AIC and the Municipal Art League of Chicago.  The catalogue listing was as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Harper, William A. \u2013 Care Wm. Wendt, 224 East Ontario Street, Chicago<\/p>\n\n\n\n

93.  The lake in the hills<\/p>\n\n\n\n

94.  The green of summer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

95.  First sign of autumn”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting to note that in the\ncatalogue for the 1902 exhibition, Harper\u2019s address for the purposes of the\nexhibition is listed as that of one of his mentors, William Wendt.  269 paintings from a submission of 629 were\nselected by the jury for the exhibition.  Charles Francis Browne and William Wendt also\nhad paintings accepted for the exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An article in the Brush and Pencil, Vol. 9, No. 6 (March 1902), an international art magazine published in Chicago, reproduced Harper’s painting entitled “First Show [Sign] of Autumn”, another rare honor for a young painter. The magazine reviewed the exhibition and noted that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWarm praise should be awarded\u2026 to\nWilliam A. Harper for his \u2018First Sign of Autumn\u2019 and \u2018The Lake in the Hills\u2019,\nboth of which are pleasing landscapes, replete with sentiment\u2026.\u201d[6]<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 1903, Harper again had two\npaintings granted entrance to the annual Chicago exhibition.  The catalogue listing was as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            “Harper, William A. \u2013 817 San Felipe Street, Houston, Texas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            90.  Eucalyptus                       $100<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            91.  The old mulberry             $100″<\/p>\n\n\n\n

239 paintings from a submission of 679\nwere selected by the jury for the exhibition. \nCharles Frances Browne and Worthington E. Haggerman had paintings\naccepted by the jury.  Haggerman would in\n1903 study at the Academie Julian in Paris with Harper.  The catalogue for that exhibition noted that\nWilliam Wendt had been elected as a member of the jury, but was unable to serve\nas he was out of the country.  He was in\nfact painting in Cornwall where Harper would join him in in the summer of 1903.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lorado Taft, an instructor at the AIC and one of the founders of the Eagle\u2019s Nest, stayed in touch with Harper during his time in Houston, and was invited to lecture in Houston by the Houston Art League in October of 1902.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Twenty-five years later Taft would provide a poignant account of his visit to Houston in a letter to the Chicago Tribune:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWill Harper was in his time the pride\nof the Art Institute.  This earnest\nstudent, who was obliged to work his way through the school, continually\nsurprised us by the large simplicity of his compositions and the somber\nrichness of his coloring.  Mr. Harper\nbecame a superintendent of drawing in the public schools of an important city\nof the south.  Never shall I forget an\nevening when I found myself lecturing there. \nThe great hall was filled below with the beauty and chivalry of the\nplace, while in the dimness of the gallery sat one lone, dark figure \u2013 my\nfriend Harper.  The colored teachers had\nobtained permission to attend, but through some misunderstanding were\nrepresented by him alone.  It was a\nstrange feeling that this social exile was perhaps the only one in my audience\nwho completely understood what I was trying to say.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No further information is available\nabout Harper\u2019s time in Houston.  It is\nunclear whether he spent the summer between the 1901 and 1902 school years in\nHouston, but given the oppressive heat of the Houston summers before the advent\nof air conditioning, it is more than likely that he either joined his father\nand brother in Decatur, Illinois, or joined Lorado Taft to work again at the\nEagle\u2019s Nest.  After the end of the\n1902-1903 school year, Harper left Houston for Europe \u2013 the ultimate\ndestination for all aspiring artist of the time.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Footnotes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Obituary, Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, Vol. 4, July 1910, p. 11<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a>Annual Report of the\nPublic Schools of the Independent School District of Houston 1900-1901., p. 51<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, p. 35<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Houston City Directory\n1902 \u2013 03, p. 118.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a>\nLetter from W.M.R. French to Wm. Harper dated August 28, 1902, advising of the\nfavorable report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a>\n\u201cWorks of Chicago Artists\u201d by Arthur Anderson Merritt in Brush and Pencil,\nVol. 9, No 6 (March 1902), pp 336-346.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a>\nReport on meeting of the advisory board of the City Federation, Houston Post,\nMay 18, 1902, p. 33.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a>\nLetter from Lorado Taft entitled \u201cThe Work of Negro Artists\u201d, Chicago Tribune, November\n17, 1927, p. 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harper graduated from the AIC in 1901 with \u201csecond honors\u201d.[1]  Following his graduation, Harper accepted a posting with the Houston public schools in Houston, Texas.  At this time, the schools in Houston were divided into white schools and \u201cColored Schools\u201d.  As a foreshadowing of Harper\u2019s arrival in Houston, the Superintendent of the Independent School District … Continue reading “Teaching in Houston”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":53,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258\/revisions\/352"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.williamaharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}