{"exhibit":{"id":1,"title":"Social Graces on the Texas Frontier: The Lizzie Johnson Papers","description":"

Welcome to a special exhibit featuring highlights from the\u00a0incoming correspondence of Lizzie Johnson, \"Cattle Queen.\" Spanning approximately 1860-1886, the items in this exhibit appear in the Johnson Family Papers<\/a> (1842-1963) housed in Southwestern University<\/a>'s Smith Library Center<\/a> Special Collections<\/a>. Although no photographs or outgoing correspondence survive, the collection highlights exhibited here provide remarkable insights into the young-adulthood of this dynamic female entrepreneur, whose legacy occupies a unique chapter in 19th-century Central Texas history.\u00a0Over the course of her career Johnson was a schoolteacher in the Austin area, a bookkeeper for cattlemen, and a cattle investor with her own registered brand; upon her marriage to Hezekiah G. Williams in 1879,\u00a0Johnson implemented a prenuptial agreement stipulating that she would continue to manage her own property and financial affairs.<\/p>\n

The items featured here bear witness not only to Johnson's independent spirit; they also provide broad perspective on the social forms and conventions that helped shape life on the Texas frontier. In order to contextualize the items in terms of the social norms and expectations they reveal, each page of the exhibit includes supplemental materials from The Ladies' Model Letter Writer\u00a0<\/em>(187-?) and\u00a0Gaskell's Compendium of Forms<\/em>\u00a0(1882),\u00a0both 19th-century etiquette resources housed in SU's Special Collections.\u00a0<\/p>","credits":"Charlotte Nunes and Rachel Robinson","featured":1,"public":1,"theme":null,"theme_options":null,"slug":"social-graces-on-the-texas-fro","added":"2021-01-11 14:43:11","modified":"2021-01-11 14:43:11","owner_id":1,"use_summary_page":1,"cover_image_file_id":null},"item":{"id":7,"item_type_id":null,"collection_id":3,"featured":0,"public":1,"added":"2021-01-11 14:05:23","modified":"2021-01-11 14:05:23","owner_id":1}}