Scope and Content Note
The papers of the William LePre Houston family span the years 1777-1936, with the bulk of the collection concentrated between 1890 and 1936. The papers include correspondence, financial records, academic files, subject files, and printed matter. They are organized in Correspondence, Miscellany, and Oversize series, and in files focused on William LePre Houston, a lawyer in general practice in Washington, D.C., and his son and law partner, Charles Hamilton Houston. Charles served as legal counsel for the National Association of Colored People during 1935-1940 and devised the strategy that led to Brown v. Board of Education and other court decisions striking down racial segregation laws in the United States. Charles served with the army in France during World War I and studied civil law in Spain during 1923-1924. Some material in the collection is in French and Spanish.
Most of the letters in the Correspondence series are between William and Charles Houston and Mary Ethel Hamilton Houston, their wife and mother respectively. Much of the correspondence was occasioned by Charles’s schooling at Amherst College in Massachusetts, his army service during World War I, and his matriculation at Harvard Law School. Included is correspondence in Spanish from when Charles attended the University of Madrid.
Also well represented in the correspondence of Charles Houston is Margaret Gladys Moran Houston, his first wife. General correspondents of Charles include William Hastie, Mordecai W. Johnson, and Carter Godwin Woodson.
Some correspondence between William Houston and his son concerns legal cases, particularly William’s work as attorney for the Railway Men’s International Benevolent Industrial Association and other African-American labor organizations. William’s activism as a Republican and his legal work for labor organizations is documented in a 1919 letter to Will H. Hays, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
William Houston was grandmaster of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America and some of his general correspondence reflects this position. Important in the correspondence is Edward H. Morris, another Odd Fellow grandmaster, lawyer, Chicago politician, and member of the Illinois house of representatives. Other general correspondents of William Houston include W. E .B. Du Bois, G. David Houston, and Booker T. Washington
Prominent in the William LePre Houston series is a file on the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America. It complements his general correspondence and includes a letter from Isaac F. Florez writing from the Dominican Republic in 1910 to inform Houston that the president of that country had just been initiated into the order. Odd Fellows also wrote from the Philippines and Liberia. Also included in the file are editions of an Odd Fellow newspaper, the Birmingham Wide-Awake, and other material focused on a jurisdictional controversy among the Odd Fellows in Alabama that William was trying to resolve as grandmaster of the national organization.
The Charles Hamilton Houston series complements his correspondence, particularly files related to his schooling at Amherst and Harvard Law School and his military experiences as a lieutenant during World War I. Charles kept a diary in which he recorded his daily experiences and the hostile racial environment he encountered during army training in the United States and service in France.
An autograph collection in the Miscellany includes the signatures of notables such as George Washington and Anthony Wayne.