WOMEN of Victorian Texas: Fashion & Entertainment

The San Jacinto battle flag proves that women were the inspiration for the Texians even from the beginning...

The true tamers of the Old West...

In the beginning there were few women in Texas, and they were a tough bunch. Like the men, many of them were frivolous adventurers, shameless opportunists, and in order to survive they turned to working as cooks, or seamstresses, or prostitutes and barmaids. Some of them came with their men, and most of  the rest of them just wanted to get married and start a farm some place. And some dreamed of fame and wealth... any way they could get it...

A very rare daguerreotype of very young and vulnerable Julia F. Gilmore in a low cut, "off the shoulder" dress... This photograph was probably made around 1850. She is probably around 13 years old... born when Texas was still a sovereign nation.

A stunning 1850's ambrotype of confident Sally Anglin, of Anderson, Texas. Expensive, "store-bought" get-ups like this one could only be acquired in Galveston.

 A few of these adventurers found what they came for, and some perished in the quest. But no group of people has been done more injustice by Hollywood than the female citizens of the West.

Always reduced to wretched hags or voluptuous sirens in fishnet stockings, it has taken the powerful myth a long time to defer to the reality. Far from weak and helpless, it was the influence and expectations of women ( and Martial Law!) that brought reasonable civilization to a wild and insolent Texas.

 After the Civil War, beautiful and elegant Libby Custer came with her husband from Louisiana in an army wagon to Hempstead, where Federal troops were based. Adaptive and charming, She and George made many friends and became quite popular in Texas, even if they were "Yankees."

Women wanted homes, schools and churches, they wanted nice stores with clothes and pretty furnishings.  Even whores wanted nice clothing and perfumes and toiletries. And they all wanted their men to be clean and shaved and presentable. This was expecting way too much!

Post-Civil War cartes de visites... "cdv's" were the first paper photos...

 The attractive Morrison sisters of Stoneham, Texas, Susan Caroline, Versi Devereaux and Emma Sophronia were born before the Civil War to Montgomery County Judge Gwynn Morrison. The older two married two of the Whitesides boys of Navasota after the Civil War.

The Old South met the American West  here in Navasota, and the culture that evolved was a melting of the two. The women were a cross of Southern lady and Western pioneer. But as these old photographs prove, they were often beautiful, and suggest the pride and independence that made Texas famous. 

Victorian sensation Lilly Langtry

Entertainer Lilly Langtry was an inspiration to men and women in Texas. Judge Roy Bean named his saloon the "Jersey Lilly" and the town Langtry.  Young women saw her as a role-model and wanted to go to the big cities and become actresses. Navasota's Lena Rubenstein did just that, changed her name to Adelaide Prince and became a famous actress who toured all over the United States and Europe.

Ambitious Adelaide Prince left Navasota in the 1870's. She later claimed to have been born in England.

Many Texas girls struck out to become singers and dancers or entertainers of some kind.  The girls below starred in a frontier town melodrama. One played a barmaid...

Just like Buffalo Bill, often the line was blurred in American entertainment between real and pretend.

The following three photos were found in an 1876 souvenir album full of players in a production made in Coltharp, Texas, now less than a ghost town.

Lucy Hudson no doubt had a starring role.

A few silk carnations in her hair, and voila! A glamour queen sits before us.

Lovely Nora [Seeons?] makes a stunning Texas barmaid. With such a convincing costume, perhaps she had some experience in that field. If you look closely, she appears to be a little cock-eyed... life changing head injuries from beatings, livestock mishaps, buggy accidents, etc. were quite common in Victorian times...

A real barmaid in her uniform. Note the enthusiastic expression...

 Dance hall girls seemed to have floated to whatever hall was paying the best... they often moon-lighted as prostitutes. But many were just good country girls trying to make a living... This one was called Nola and her photo, a cabinet card from around 1890, was found among the possessions of an Anderson gentleman.

Many girls were from rural backgrounds and had no education or talent.  As fate would have it, some of them still became famous, after becoming prostitutes. 

Lounging in a low cut dress, smoking a cigar, with a pet parrot on her knee, ladies of the evening had a fairly glamorous image.

Towns like Navasota were infested with such women and the men looking for them. San Antonio had the most famous brothels and the most celebrated prostitutes. Members of the infamous Wild Bunch were favorite customers there. Here is a rogue's gallery of young women who forsook their trade in Texas to travel with some of the most notorious robbers of the west...

Once very pretty, beleaguered Laura Boullion ran with the Wild bunch and especially Kid Curry until their luck ran out.. and she went to prison. He escaped and was killed in a shoot-out.

 Haughty Annie Rogers made her parents proud when she left the brothels of Texas, only to tag along with Kid Curry, the most dangerous outlaw in the West... but she finally gave the outlaw life up.

Said to have been a school teacher, beautiful, mysterious Etta Place chose the outlaw life with the "Sundance Kid"... Harry Longbaugh, before disappearing forever. We can only hope better dreams were one day realized.

By the early 1900's, women had overtaken the wild men and Texas would spend the next fifty years adapting itself to their vision of of life... here is my grandmother and her mother, Gennie Durant McDougald, a socialite who relished in Galveston's high society.  My grandmother, Nell McDougald, was a throwback however, and loved to ride horses and spend time on the ranch with her grandfather's ranch hands...

Little Nell and Virginia Durant McDougald. Taken in 1902, it was about this time that these two lived in Navasota for awhile during a marital separation.

 Julia D. Owen of Navasota was an accomplished musician, songwriter and singer. Her claim to fame was "The Texas Bluebonnet Song."

So women won the West... and eventually made sissies out of their little boys and demonized guns and hunting and fishing and...

Well, some of them...

Navasota had a Cover Girl!

Another Texas woman who has not only been forgotten to history but robbed of her origins is Adelaide Prince. From Millican, Texas, she became one of the leading ladies of the stage, touring all over the United States and England. But her legacy has had no resting place, and that is much her own fault.

Born to a family of Jewish immigrants around 1868, the home folk in Navasota knew her as Lena Rubinstien. According to Maureen Chinski, fellow Jewess and the author of The Navasota Bluebonnet, (published in 1954) young Lena moved to the Navasota area when young and attended private schools there, where she grew into a “great beauty” and showed dramatic skill early. By age nineteen she was married to Harry Prince, a Galveston showman who gave her a stage name and a start in show business.

But soon little “Len” from Millican had left him and her children for fame and fortune in the east, where she fell under the spell of Creston Clarke of the famed Booth acting dynasty, whom she married and starred with in many productions. Later Rubinstien/Prince became one of the first actresses to attempt the difficult transition from the stage to the Silent Screen. She is credited with at least three early films.

Perhaps embarrassed by her lack of motherly responsibility, she shed old associations in Texas and assumed a new life with her new career, and as this handbill reveals, she claimed to her fans that she was born in England. This could be true, but if it is, she must have come over to America as an infant. She actually came back to Navasota in 1890, where she and her company put on a one-night show; The Last of His Kind. It is presumed she had come to Navasota to see her children, who were still young and might well have been farmed out to their grandparents. [An anonymous blog commenter has offered that both of her children lived long lives, and son Harry became a successful writer in California, actually writing at least one screenplay.]

Her true hometown of Millican, Texas was never exposed, and she died in exile. By then her relations back home had probably given up on her, and there was no blood-kin to mourn her passing. Had not Maureen Chinski casually mentioned her in a paragraph in her book, which she never lived to see published, we would have never known about this amazing story… begging to be told.

Since discovering Lena in the Chinski account, I have found several wonderful relics of her career, floating around the Internet, such as tobacco cards, magazine covers, and the advertisement at the top, which quite clearly illustrates her flamboyant tendencies. Adelaide Prince was never a big star, but certainly a worthy member of the incredible "Residents of Navasota and the Surrounding Area Hall of Fame":

Chuck Norris- Karate master, philanthropist, and Hollywood actor

Joe Tex, AKA Josef Hazziez- Songwriter and popular soul performer

Mance Lipscomb- Texas Songster, mentor to rock stars

Alvin Ailey- Iconoclast of American modern dance

Milt Larkin- Blues and jazz band leader

Alger "Texas" Alexander- Early Texas blues singer

Frank Hamer- Navasota City Marshal and famous Texas Ranger

Adelaide Prince- American cover girl, stage and Silent Screen actress

Virgil "Ned" Garvin- One of the 100 best Major League baseball pitchers

Little Lena from Millican, Texas

New York, east coast and London theatre goers knew her as “Adelaide Prince,” the statuesque actress and wife of leading man Creston Clarke, a member of the legendary Booth family, the first acting dynasty in the United States. She was a world travelled entertainer, claiming to have been born in England, trained in the finest drama schools, and married into one of the most famous and controversial names in American history. Not only had the Booth family dominated the theatre for decades, but one of them had killed President Lincoln. But Adelaide was born after all of that, and found in Creston Clarke the keys to fame, fortune, and legitimacy as she travelled with him and his company, always guaranteed the leading female role in his plays. Later in the 1920’s she acted in the first motion pictures, becoming a “silent film” star. And no one knew…

In fact she was known in these parts as Lena Rubinstein, daughter of Solomon Rubinstein. Millican born, she was enjoyed in Navasota as an aspiring entertainer, who dazzled the town in local Drama Club events, only to leave as soon as she could, around 1887. Only 19, “Len” left her modest upbringing and private education, where her chosen lifestyle was unimaginable, if not downright improper, to marry Harry Prince, a wealthy Galvestonian, and become an Island City phenomenon. After bearing him two children, she gave up on her prospects in Texas and went on to the northeast, where she was given acting roles immediately. Her debut was in Portland, Maine, but by 1891 she was in London, acting in Irving’s “As You Like It,” and an understudy to Ada Rehan. Navasota historian Maurine Chinski postulated that Harry Prince waited patiently for her return to Galveston, hard work and her children, which was never to be.

She lived the rest of her life under her assumed name and identity, even after marrying Clarke around 1910, long after they had toured the east coast with impressive shows. She and Clarke did a one night stand in Navasota in the 1890’s, no doubt during a trip to visit her children. It was entitled “The Last of His Race,” and was held over for a matinee the next day. One wonders if her children ever saw her perform, or if they and their father were lost with 5000 others during the 1900 Storm, which nearly wiped Galveston off of the map. Yet Lena, aka “Adelaide,” became an important player on the stage and screen, dying in Pennsylvania of natural causes in 1941. A rolling stone gathers no moss.