Lucy Ann Kidd-Key

 

    During my research and writing about the Progressive-Era Fort Worth educator and reformer, Sallie Brooke Capps (which is now a book!), I have absorbed much of the history of nineteenth-century education in Grayson County, especially academics in Sherman during the Gilded Age. Moreover, I became interested in Austin College’s female counterpart, Kidd-Key College, which operated from 1888-1935. In this blog post, I briefly examine the life of Lucy Ann Kidd-Key and the once prestigious woman institution she founded (picture to the left is of Mrs. Kidd-Key as a young woman, Wikipedia).

Lucy Ann Thornton was born on November 15, 1839 to a Virginian father and a South Carolinian mother. She was raised in an affluent social class and groomed to follow her mother’s footsteps in becoming a secretary. However, Lucy had ambitious plans in her future and desired to become involved in primary academics and teaching. At nineteen, she married a gentleman from Kentucky, Henry Byrd Kidd, who owned a large plantation near Yazoo City, Mississippi. Though struggles in power were presumably evident due to different personalities (Mr. Kidd was said to be quiet, while his wife was loud and boisterous), the marriage was seen to be a happy union as the couple had three children.

In 1877 Henry B. Kidd died, leaving his wife the financial problems of a large estate in the post-war and economically-struggling South. However, monetary problems did not deter the energetic woman from her goals, and Lucy Ann Kidd soon became a presiding teacher and part owner of the Whitworth College of Mississippi. Mrs. Kidd enjoyed teaching and motivating young students towards their academic goals. A perfect opportunity arose for the educator in 1888. Bishop G.D. Galloway, who was one of the primary beneficiaries of the defunct North Texas Female College in Sherman, Texas, traveled to Mississippi and became very interested in the teaching and administrative styles of Lucy Ann Kidd.

In a private meeting, the bishop explained to the Mississippi educator that Texas’s Methodist Church planned to revive the Grayson County female college after the school had closed in 1886 due to a debt that ran as deep as $11,000 (this was four years after my thesis subject, Sallie B. Capps’s graduation from the Sherman college). Determined to use her skills and energy to create a school of the highest order that rivaled other nationally-recognized institutions in the North Texas area (including Austin College), Lucy Ann Kidd made the move to Texas and started to attend Methodist camp meetings to secure funding for the rival project. Moreover, she toured the South West, including towns in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana, persuading students to enroll in the college. As she was an admirer of music, Lucy Ann Kidd praised the benefits of music education to the college’s future trustees, eventually earning their support to fund an academy that focused on music education (photograph to the right is of the Austin College’s ‘Old Main’ building, before it was destroyed by fire in 1913, Wikipedia).

In the fall months of 1888, Lucy Ann Kidd took over the property of the former North Texas Female College and opened the new academy to much local success. The woman educator insured a suitable student body by bringing sixteen young ladies with her from Mississippi, among them Marie Lowry, the daughter of Mississippi’s governor. The main financial agent was Reverend J.M. Binkley, who helped Lucy Ann Kidd recruit a spectacular faculty, talented teachers and artists of their respective crafts who got along well together and worked as a team to keep the school open.

The college’s department of modern languages was headed by Mrs. Maggie W. Barry, a middle-aged woman who had studied French literature and dramatic expression under the famous Mme. Marie du Minil of the Theatre Francais in Paris. Moreover, Mrs. Barry had studied German and Italian literature in Berlin for a brief period. Katherine Lester of Oxford, Mississippi, who had studied at the Julien Art School in France, was hired as an art teacher. Paul Harold von Mickwitz, one of the most promising students of the great Leschetizky and adept at playing concert piano, was hired as the college’s first music teacher. Kidd-Key College (the institution was renamed in the early 1900s after Lucy Ann Kidd married Bishop Joseph S. Key of the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1892) would gain additional faculty members in due time, including Frank Renard, a musician who had been received by the Kings and Queens of Sweden and Germany; Carl Venth, a concert-master of the Opera Comique in Paris who would later contribute richly to the musical life of San Antonio; Miss. Ethel Rader, a local of Denison who graduated from the college and later returned to teach at Kidd-Key College and Austin College; and Theodore Gontzoff, a revered Russian singer (postcard image to the right shows the Kidd-Key Conservatory, c. early 1900s, Pintrest).

The daily academic and residential activities were structured, as Lucy Ann Kidd-Key firmly believed that young ladies ought to show superior conduct and professionalism in all aspects of life. Students were required to don a school uniform of a white-flowing dress on campus, including in the hot summer months. Moreover, a night watchman was hired to ensure that each young woman was getting sleep each night. The students were strictly supervised at all times and had to secure permission to go shopping or walk to the downtown plaza (they would be accompanied by a chaperone, whether they liked it or not). Additionally, the girls would be wakened each morning by a bugle call blown by Lucy Ann Kidd-Key’s Negro servant Lem Davis, who, according to rumors, enjoyed doing the special task.

During Lucy Ann Kidd-Key’s tenure as the principal of the revived North Texas Female College and the later renamed Kidd-Key College, the student body swelled and the physical layout of the campus expanded. New academic buildings were built on the former property of the Mary Nash College in 1905, and a large gymnasium was added in the corner of Mulberry and Elm Streets in Sherman. Additionally, a music conservatory was constructed and the college began hosting music concerts and recitals for the local residents. The language department expanded it’s course offerings, including classes in Latin, Greek, German, and French. Moreover, high school degrees were replaced with junior college degrees and then as advanced degrees (the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree, which only males received during this time period), such as Artium Magistra, Mistress of English Literature, Bachelor of Painting, and Bachelor of Music. The growth of the student body prompted the principal and the Methodist Board to build a dormitory on the grounds, complete with running water, bathtubs, and electricity. Student life also grew, as literature clubs were organized and formal parties/informal gatherings with Austin College students became frequent events on campus (including an annual tradition called ‘George Washington’s Birthday Party,’ where Kidd-Key College students would don colonial attire and invite male students from Austin College to their eighteenth-century themed party). (photo to the left is a postcard of the exterior of Kidd-Key College’s main building, c. 1910, Lost Woman’s Space-Blogger).

The expansion was firmly rooted in Lucy Ann Kidd-Key’s educational aim to strive higher in student capacity and ability. However, the college struggled in the 1920s and 1930s. After a fruitful and successful life, Lucy Ann Kidd-Key died peacefully in 1916. Soon after, it became a forgone conclusion that the rapid growth of woman students attending Kidd-Key College would threaten the existence of Sherman’s male university, Austin College. In an attempt to preserve their institution, the Board of Trustees at Austin College formally allowed female students to attend classes at their college in 1919, hindering the attendance levels at Kidd-Key College. Moreover, Kidd-Key College entered a cooperative agreement with Austin College in 1930. In 1933, after years of partnership, the Texas Methodists withdrew their financial support in favor of the proposed construction of a new Methodist institution in Dallas (which would become Southern Methodist University). With no energetic leader or monetary funds, the woman school in Sherman that Lucy Ann Kidd-Key had earlier revived closed its doors on May 31, 1935. Subsequently, the property was sold to the City of Sherman.

Unfortunately, there remains little of the Kidd-Key College today except a few bricks of the administration building incorporated in the Municipal Auditorium (which bares it’s namesake). Though the college remains a distant memory to some Texas historians and many current residents of Sherman, the thousands of woman students who attended Kidd-Key College and obtained degrees of higher learning that prompted them to pursue occupations that were originally controlled by the white patriarchy is no feat to dismiss in a discussion on the history of education in Texas. The alumnae of this former institution changed the community structures of Texas and emerged as leaders in the newly-webbed feminist movement of the early twentieth century. And the knowledge and sequential actions of these young women were grounded in the academic institution made possible by a Mississippi educator who took the risks to move to Texas and revive a defunct school– a woman pioneer in American education, Mrs. Lucy Ann Kidd-Key (photograph to the right is of Mrs. Kidd-Key in later life, Wikipedia).

For more information regarding Mrs. Lucy Ann Kidd-Key and her college for young women: Domatti, Ruth O. “A History of Kidd-Key College.” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 63 (1959): 263-278.