Between the Acts at a Ladies Cafe

Between the Acts at a Ladies Cafe (1896)

From the Galveston [Texas] Daily News, November 8, 1896

It's not terribly common to find illustrations of nineteenth-century ladies cafes that actually depict, well, ladies. Especially ladies that are enjoying each other's company without a lot of male escorts. So I'm sharing this particular print here. Unfortunately, the reproduction quality of this print is not terribly good (okay, it's awful) and the article that accompanies it is basically illegible. Very frustrating....

Alan's Tea Rooms

Alan's Tea Rooms (1910)

Alan's Tea Rooms

Location: 263 Oxford Street, London, England, United Kingdom

Opened: 1907

Closed: 1916

Time and time again, we've made the argument here at Lost Womyn's Space that having real physical public space where women can safely meet and congregate is crucial to the survival and the future of the feminist movement. (Bonus points if the space is actually owned, managed, and controlled by women for women.) We've also mentioned that this was also true for the women of the first wave of the feminist movement, who often met at tea shops and used them as "sheltering space" for public meetings and organizing. (Check out the tea room tabs below for earlier posts.)

There seems to be a lot of new and fascinating research on these issues, which is really important to share. This recent piece from the Women's History Network on "Suffragettes and Tea Rooms" discusses one of these places, which was called Alan's Tea Rooms. [Note: the "reference guide" mentioned below is shorthand for Elizabeth Crawford's The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide (1999)]:

One of the businesses mentioned in the Reference Guide was ‘Alan’s Tea Rooms’, 263 Oxford Street, popular with both suffragettes and suffragists. I suggested that the owner, ‘Mr Alan Liddle’, while not charging the rent of the room hired for suffrage meetings, doubtless made his profit from the sale of the accompanying tea and buns, conjuring up the image of a suave male entrepreneur cashing in on the need of campaigners for a safe haven in Central London. A minute with the relevant rate book in Westminster Archives revealed that the owner was not ‘Mr Alan Liddle’, but ‘Miss Marguerite Alan Liddle’. A subsequent investigation of the census records showed that she was the sister of Helen Gordon Liddle, an active member of the WSPU, who, in The Prisoner, describes the month in 1909 during which she endured forcible feeding in Strangeways prison. Thus, while the news pages of Votes for Women were reporting her sister’s hunger strike, the back pages carried advertisements for Alan’s ‘dainty luncheons’.

Over and above this direct connection with the suffrage movement, the rate book demonstrated that Alan Liddle may have had good cause to advertise to suffragettes as assiduously as she did. For it became evident that ‘Alan’s Tea Rooms’ was on the first-floor of the Oxford Street building and, in order to reach their lunch, customers had to enter by a door at the side of the shopfront and climb a flight of stairs. With so much competition from neighbouring establishments  – a Liptons, a Lyons and an ABC were all close by – one can see that the proprietor may well have thought it necessary to carve out a niche market.

As to the ‘look’ of Alan’s Tea Rooms – a photograph (London Metropolitan Archives) showed that the now-demolished building had at its first floor a semi-circular arcaded window, rather in the Venetian style. One might imagine that a table in the window, looking down onto Oxford Street, would have been rather popular.

Fortunately the discovery of a line drawing of a ‘corner of Alan’s Tea Rooms’ in a 1910 issue of The Idler, a magazine edited by Jerome K. Jerome, made it unnecessary to rely wholly on conjecture  – with the bonus that the artist included a sample menu. Thus it has been possible, from a variety of sources, to recreate something of the reality of this business, which, from 1907 until 1916, provided a space in which ‘Votes for Women’ could be freely discussed.

Read the rest here. 

Troll Club

Street scene - Alikarnassoy Kolonas

Troll Club

Location: Alikarnassoy 7, Kolonas, Athens, Greece

Opened: ?

Closed: June 17, 2006

The only reference I have found to this former lesbian bar is at an old website by the name of Athens by Night Sapphites Guide (love that name!). But unless you're interested in history, don't bother to visit as it hasn't been updated since 2007. At any rate, this is what is said about Troll Club:

Troll, Lesbian bar-club * REPORTED CLOSED - 17 JUNE 2006 
www.troll.gr - Alikarnassoy 7, Kolonos (from Kostantinoypoleos & Lenorman bridge) tel. 210.5158920 
The second self-identified lesbian venue in Athens - Mostly young women and a few occasional gay friends 
very interesting music mixes (latest mainstream 2 all-time classics 2 Greek dance music) 
Opens late Tuesday-Sunday nights, (~ 11pm to 3am.. and more on weekends) !

We know that it was open in April 2005 as there is this reference:

Friday, April 8th, Athens, lesbian.gr-chat Party, at the Troll club, Alikarnassoy str, Kolonos, after midnight

But that's about it.

Blue Mountain Female College

Blue Mountain Female College

Blue Mountain Female College

Location: 201 West Main Street, Blue Mountain, Mississippi, USA

Opened: Founded 1873

Closed: Now coed; in 1956, began offering training for men in Baptist Church-related vocations, with all programs opening to men in 2005

From the Blue Mountain College website (with a little editing):

Blue Mountain College was founded in 1873 by Civil War Brigadier General Mark Perrin Lowrey.

As a village preacher before the war, General Lowrey was a man of vision who saw the importance of providing a thorough education for women.  The General felt that the South's recovery would be enhanced by the educating its young women.  He and his two oldest daughters, Modena and Margaret, comprised the first faculty at what was then Blue Mountain Female Institute.   Fifty students were enrolled for the first session.

Miss Modena Lowrey Berry, affectionately known as "Mother Berry" in later years, served as "Lady Principal" and then as vice president from 1873 to 1934, a tenure perhaps unequaled by a woman as a major college official.  She was the second woman in Mississippi's history to be named to the Mississippi Hall of Fame. 

Between 1873 and 1960 three generations of the Lowrey family including the General's sons, Dr. W. T. Lowrey and Dr. B. G. Lowrey, and his grandson, Dr. Lawrence T. Lowrey, presided over the college.  In 1960 Dr. Wilfred C. Tyler, long-time professor of Bible at the school, accepted the presidency and served until his death in 1965.  Dr. E. Harold Fisher served the college as president from July 1, 1965, until his retirement June 30, 2001.  Dr. Bettye Rogers Coward assumed responsibilities as the seventh president of Blue Mountain College on July 1, 2001.

Blue Mountain College was independently owned and administered until 1920, when control was turned over to the Mississippi Baptist Convention. From 1873 to 2005, the school operated as a traditional liberal arts college for women.  In 1956 at the request of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, the College opened its doors to men preparing for church-related vocations.  

On October 4, 2005, the Board of Trustees of Blue Mountain College unanimously voted to make all programs offered by the College available to male students, thus making BMC fully co-educational.

Modena Lowrey Berry

At this blog, we hear more about the remarkable Modena Berry, a steel magnolia if ever there was one. (It's interesting that in all the material I've looked at on this college, I haven't seen one word about the wife of General Lowrey, the mother of all these children):

Modena Lowrey Berry (1850-1942), known as "Mother Berry," if considered to be the co-founder of the college and was the vice president at Blue Mountain for an incredible span of 61 years. At age 90, while still at her post, she fell and broke her leg after slipping on the steps of the college’s Administration building. Rushed to the Baptist hospital in Memphis, she spent several weeks in recovery. Unfortunately, she would never be able to walk again. Remarkably, she returned to her beloved college and resumed her duties in a wheelchair. "Mother Berry" died the next year, and was laid to rest in the Blue Mountain Cemetery. Her tenure as a college administrator is likely never to be equaled.

Now that's a commitment to women's education! Though I presume, given that this was Mississippi, that the education was limited to white women until comparatively recently.

And notice that while Modena served as vice president for 61 years, the presidency was reserved for her father, her brothers, and later her nephew. Even though this was a college that was supposed to be for women....

South London Hospital for Women and Children

Main Entrance - South London Hospital for
 Women and Children

South London Hospital for Women and Children

Location: 103 South Side, Clapham Commons, SW4 9DR, London, England, United Kingdom

Opened: 1913

Closed: 1984

This piece on the South London Hospital for Women and Children is from another one of those cool accidental finds, Lost Hospitals of London:

The perceived need for a general hospital for women in south London, staffed totally by women, was met when the South London Hospital for Women was founded by Miss Eleanor Davies-Colley (1874-1934) and Miss Maud Chadburn in 1912.  The new hospital would also train women doctors to become specialists (most hospitals at this time refused to employ them).

The two women, both surgeons at the New Hospital for Women, had begun raising funds in 1911.  The New Hospital for Women, which had been established for the same purposes, was having to turn away patients as it was unable to cope with the demand.

Two large houses - Holland House and Kingston House - on the south side of Clapham Common had been purchased following a public appeal.  An anonymous donation of £53,000 towards the building costs and a further £40,000 for the endowment of the Hospital enabled it to open within a year of its foundation.  The Out-Patients Department opened first, in 1913, at 88 and 90 Newington Causeway, while Holland House was demolished and building of the new hospital began.  In 1914 in-patients were temporarily accommodated in a nearby nursing home.

In 1916 the 80-bedded South London Hospital for Women was opened by Queen Mary.

The Hospital was said to be an 'Adamless Eden' as, apart from the engineer and the gardener, all the staff were women, including the porters.  A state-of-the art building, each ward had a balcony and an unusually large bathroom, which had wide doors so that a patient could be helped to enter supported by two nurses. The lavatory walls were covered with white marble, as this was believed to be non-absorbent.  An electric lift could take patients on their beds up to the flat roof for open-air treatment.  The infectious wards could only be entered from the flat roof. The nurses quarters contained a dining room, sitting room, silent room and visitors' room.  Each nurse had her own bedroom.  Their bathrooms contained facilities for shampooing hair and hot rails over which it could be dried.  The ward maids and servants had their own comfortably fitted cubicles in the basement.

In 1920 another building - Preston House - on the south side of the Hospital site was purchased.  This was equipped to provide an extra 40 surgical beds and was opened by the Duchess of York in 1924.  Kingston House, on the north side of the Hospital, was demolished in 1927 and a new North Wing built.  This included a new Out-Patients Department.

The North Wing opened in 1930 and building works continued throughout the 1930s.  The name of the Hospital was changed slightly and it became the South London Hospital for Women and Children (although boys up to the age of six had always been admitted).  The outbreak of WW2 in 1939 postponed the opening of the new South Wing and Nurses' Home.

During WW2 the Hospital admitted war casualties, after a Special Act of Parliament enabled it to treat male patients.  Although the buildings did not suffer serious damage, like other hospitals at this time its normal work was disrupted due to shortage of staff.  A 20-bed maternity unit had been due to open in 1944, but because of the danger of V1 flying bombs, it was evacuated to Scarborough.  The maternity home opened a few months later in Nightingale Lane (and was officially opened only in 1948 as the Queen Elizabeth Maternity Home).

A house in Chistlehurst was loaned to the Hospital; it had 35 beds for patients receiving medical treatment or convalescing following surgery.

In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS, become part of the Lambeth Group of Hospitals.  It also opened a country annex at Woodhurst, a house at Peas Pottage near Crawley (this closed in 1970).

In 1964, following an NHS reorganisation, the Hospital passed to the newly formed South West London Group Hospital Management Committee.

In 1974 it then became part of the Wandsworth and East Merton Health District.

In 1982, after yet another NHS reoganisation, the Wandsworth Health Authority assumed responsibility for the Hospital.  The Health Authority decided it was 'uneconomic' and, despite strong public opposition, a petition signed by 60,000 people and occupation of the building for nine months by protesters, the Hospital closed in 1984.

The South London Hospital for Women and Children, once described as the 'best run hospital in England' maintained its female-only staffing policy to the end.

Present status (February 2008)

The supermarket chain, Tesco, bought the site in 1994 and planned to demolish the Hospital and to erect a 2,499 sq. metre supermarket with 112 apartments above (including an 11-storey tower) and parking for 257 cars.

Demolition was contested on the grounds of the builidng's architectural importance. Thus, the plans were changed and original facade of the Hospital retained; the rest of the building was demolished in 2004.

More on the 1984 protest and occupation can be found here.

Durand's Restaurant Ladies' Cafe

Union Station - Atlanta (built 1871)

Durand's Restaurant Ladies' Cafe

Location: Union Station, on what is now Wall Street between Pryor Street and Central Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Opened: August 1895

Closed: Probably by 1930 at the latest, when the new Union Station was constructed at Forsyth and Spring Streets

Back in late 19th-century Atlanta, Henry R. Durand (1855-1932) was the owner, president, and manager of the then-famous Durand's Restaurant at Union Station. But like nearly all eateries of this time period, Durand's was more or less reserved for the gents. Upper-class gents of course. And given that this was the southern United States under the reign of Jim Crow, specifically white upper-class gents. In fact, if you are interested, you can see a photo from Durand's all-dude birthday party from 1906, which I presume was taken at Durand's "main" Restaurant. 

But then in 1895, Durand decided to set up a second-floor cafe just for the ladies (and presumably their male escorts). As we have noted before, ladies cafes were nearly always shoehorned into marginalized commercial spaces like basements or second floors. From the Atlanta Constitution, August 4, 1895:

Atlanta Constitution (August 4, 1895)

A DELIGHTFUL LADIES' CAFE.

Mr. Henry Durand, the Restauranteur, Has Opened a Charming Place.

Never was there a more complete ladies' cafe opened in Atlanta than that which Mr. Henry Durand, the well known proprietor of the celebrated Durand's restaurant at the union passenger station, has just established in the second story of his delightful place.

Hitherto Mr. Durand has been somewhat handicapped to not have at hand sufficient space to meet the demands for an extensive department for the ladies at his restaurant, but by a recent deal he has been enabled to gain quite an addition in the scope of this department, and has just opened a ladies' cafe that will prove all sufficient to the trade and a credit to Atlanta.

In fulfillment of the artistic design of loveliness and countless attractions embraced in the conception of this departure by the popular restaurateur, the ladies' cafe has been fitted up in the most beautiful fashion with all the elegant appointments common to the best restaurants of the time and decorated with beautiful palms and potted ferns which rustle and wave beneath the cooling breath of the silent fans overhead. It is one of the coolest of places, and even amid the frightful heat of midday it is a charming retreat from the blistering rays of the sun, and is irresistibly
tempting with all its stirring breezes, spotless linens, rustling palms and countless charms of culinary achievements.

The ladies' cafe at Durand's will certainly prove one of the successes of the day. It is kept fully up to the high standard of excellence that the restaurant has measured to in the past and is presided over by Miss Kate Pinckard, the most expert cashier in the city. Under her excellent guidance the department for the ladies at Durand's will be run fully up to date in every particular. Many vast improvements have been made lately in the main restaurant, too, and by the time the exposition opens Mr. Durand will be enabled to accommodate just three times as many people at the union passenger station restaurant as before.  The kitchen has been renovated and two large and capable ranges have been put into service. This department is presided over by skilled chefs, and their work is entirely satisfactory. Two large coffee urns furnish the best of French coffee made after the fashion of Mr. Durand's inimitable process. If Durand's is famous for any one thing more than for another it is for the coffee that is served there.

New refrigerators have been put in, and in point of fact the restaurant has been made new in every line.

This is one of the few times I have seen a woman's name connected with the running of a ladies' cafe. At first I was confused by all the fuss over a cashier. Than I realized that Miss Kate Pinckard really functioned as more of a general manager--a job I'm sure she never would have been allowed to have in the "main" (male) restaurant. And thought she may have functioned as a general manager, she was called a "cashier." And no doubt paid as one. 

Ladies Waiting Room (Glasgow, Scotland)

Ladies Waiting Room

Former Ladies Waiting Room - photographer: Joe Fox

Location: Below Clyde Street, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

Opened/Closed: Mid-19th century to ?

From the Victorian era through the 1920s or so, it was not unusual in the slightest for women in the west to have separate public spaces in cafes, restaurants, or hotels. Railway stations also put aside waiting rooms for ladies.

This ladies waiting room in Glasgow, Scotland is now in ruins. But it is haunting to imagine the lives of the ladies who once huddled between these walls while awaiting their next train. Where were they going? What were they thinking? What did they say to one another? What smiles, confidences, secrets were exchanged?