Julia Ideson Library

In 2006, the Julia Ideson Library Preservation Partners (JILPP) was formed as a Texas not-for-profit corporation. Chaired by Phoebe Tudor, this group accepted the challenge of raising the funds necessary to build a new archival wing for the Houston Metropolitan Research Center, located at the Ideson Library since 1976, and enhance and restore the h... istoric building designed by noted Boston architects Cram & Ferguson. The capital campaign was launched in October 2007 and raised $32 million by October 2010. Ralph Adams Cram was one of the country's foremost practitioners of Gothic and other revival styles. He also designed the campus plan for Rice Institute (now Rice University) and Trinity Episcopal Church in Houston, the campus of Princeton University, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and St. John the Divine Church in New York City. For the Ideson Library, Mr. Cram utilized a Spanish Renaissance style appropriate to our city's Texas heritage and collaborated on the design with distinguished Houston architect William Ward Watkin, a former employee of Cram's who was at the time a professor of architecture at Rice Institute. Cram's building was to replace the city's 1904 Carnegie Library on the corner of Main and McKinney. Houston had hired its first professional librarian, Julia Ideson, in 1902 and as the city quickly grew she worked tirelessly on plans for a larger facility. The new building at 500 McKinney opened in 1926 and served Houston as the city's main library until the opening fifty years later of the new and larger Central Library next door. Miss Ideson headed the Houston Public Library for 42 years until her death in 1945. In 1951, by order of the City Council, the beautiful library that she loved was named in her honor.Read More