Social Distancing, 1915

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Melissa Kean

Our first biology professor, Julian Huxley. It’s labeled “standing in a field near Houston.”

I did the same thing today except the field was a golf course.

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5 Responses to Social Distancing, 1915

  1. Barney L. McCoy, Hanszen 67 says:
    March 26, 2020 at 6:26 pm

    You don’t know how much I envy you. Because of back and knee issues I haven’t touched a club in 5 years. The best way to social distance would be on a golf course.

    Reply
  2. Philip Walters says:
    March 26, 2020 at 6:35 pm

    Some day, I want to take some vacation time and come down to Woodson and browse through Julian Huxley’s papers, especially his field travels

    Reply
  3. Deborah Gronke Bennett BSEE Hanszen 1982 says:
    March 26, 2020 at 8:00 pm

    My father visited Houston in about 1953 when he was stationed at Ft Hood. When we relocated to Houston in 1973, he went out of town on Main St looking for Rice where he remembered it. Of course it was well inside the city limits by then.

    So Huxley may be standing in what was a field then, but a parking lot or subdivision now. I wonder where the city limits were in 1915?

    Reply
    • Susan Hoover says:
      March 30, 2020 at 5:30 am

      Here’s a map from 1910 showing what appear to be boundaries (not the red oval, but the white here-be-dragons sections): https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth220509/m1/1/
      HPL has access to the Sanborn maps (1″ = 50′), and the Portal to Texas History also has quadrant maps (Katy, Hillendahl, Mykawa, Alief, Clodine, …) from 1915, but you’d have to piece them together.

      Reply
  4. Galloway Hudson. Wiess '60 says:
    March 26, 2020 at 9:46 pm

    My father was born in 1899. Looking out of his Twelve Oaks hospital room in the 1970’s. he said, “The first time I came to Houston, there was one red light on Main Street”. That was about 1920, after he had served in France in WW I. We can be sure that red light was nowhere near Rice.

    Reply

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