Photograph Album Documenting The Early Life Of A Texas Teacher

ANNA MAE (THOMPSON) HENDERSON

Publication: Album compiled by Anna Mae Henderson,1916 -1918, N P, 1916 - 1918

An extensively annotated photographic album containing more than 600 images documenting the early life of Anna Mae (Thompson) Henderson (1884–1973), a lifelong teacher in Texas.

The first photographs in the album are from Henderson’s “wedding tour” with her husband, Samuel Watson Henderson, who was a professor. They went by train to Kansas City and then on to Chicago, where they visited tourist sites such as Lincoln Park, but also photographed poor children on the street. Another series of photographs show her at Columbia University and Hamilton Hall “where I took my work,” according to the caption.

There are also numerous photographs of Henderson from 1916 to 1918 at St. Mary’s College for Women in Dallas, where she was a teacher and coached the women’s basketball team. A program for an athletic ceremony is laid into the album pages. St. Mary’s was founded in Dallas by Alexander C. Garrett, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Dallas. The album contains a photograph of him, as well as a few images of the 1916 construction of Garrett Hall, named for him. The college had constant financial difficulties, became an accredited junior college in the 1920s, but was forced to close in 1930.

The photographs are all in black-and-white, vary in size from 1 ½“ x 2 ½” to 5” x 5”, and are affixed to black album leaves. Many are accompanied by captions written in white ink. Henderson’s name and address are written in the rear of the album, which is bound with string ties in limp black leatherette covers, which are moderately edgeworn with a small chip to the front panel. Item