HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Juliette Abbey Peak Fowler

Dallas, Dallas County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Juliette Abbey Peak Fowler (May 8, 1837 - June 4, 1889) After the deaths of her husband and children in the early 1860s, Juliette Peak Fowler lived in Dallas and was active in local charitable causes. Committed to orphans and elderly women during her life, she provided for their benevolent care in her will. Under the direction of her sister, Sarah Peak Harwood, the Juliette Fowler Homes began in 1892. Transferred to the Disciples of Christ Church in 1903, the homes continue to reflect the goals and ideas of their founder.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

After losing her husband and children in the early 1860s, Juliette Peak Fowler devoted herself to charitable work in Dallas, caring for orphans and elderly women and providing for their support in her will. Following her death in 1889, her sister carried out that vision, founding the Juliette Fowler Homes in 1892. Transferred to the Disciples of Christ in 1903, the institution has continued her mission ever since.

Why it matters

Fowler's legacy reflects the powerful role women played in building America's charitable and social-welfare institutions in the 19th century.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Juliette Abbey Peak Fowler
  • · Sarah Peak Harwood

Themes & tags

Women's HistoryMemorial

Nearby & related markers

Women's Suffrage in Dallas County

Dallas, TX

Dallas stood at the center of the Texas suffrage movement from its earliest days. In 1893 the Texas Equal Rights Association formed at the city's Windsor Hotel, and two decades later the Dallas Equal Suffrage Association carried the fight into the twentieth century under Margaret Bell Houston Kaufman, a granddaughter of Sam Houston. Dallas County activists gathered thousands of petition signatures and registered over 16,000 women to vote in the 1918 primary, helping propel Texas toward ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

First Juries to Sit Women in Dallas County

Dallas, TX

Winning the vote in 1920 did not win Texas women a seat in the jury box — that took until 1954. For decades advocates pressed the point, and newspapers needled a system that let women serve as district judges yet barred them from a jury, occasionally reporting on women summoned 'by mistake.' After voters amended the state constitution in November 1954, Adelyne Dransfield was elected one of Dallas County's first female jury 'foremen.'

Alexander Cockrell_Sarah Horton Cockrell

Dallas, TX

Alexander Cockrell arrived in the Dallas area in 1845, fought in the war with Mexico, and by 1852 had bought the remainder of the townsite from Dallas's founder, John Neely Bryan, building brickyards, a sawmill, and a Trinity River bridge. When he was killed over a debt in 1858, his wife Sarah Horton Cockrell took the reins, finishing the St. Nicholas Hotel, running the ferry, and adding a flour mill — becoming the first woman in Dallas to wield real economic power.

John Neely Bryan, 1810-1877 and Margaret Beeman Bryan, 1825-1919

Dallas, TX

In 1839 Tennessee lawyer John Neely Bryan chose this high bluff and shallow ford on the Trinity River for a trading post, and when he returned in 1841 he platted a town, installed a ferry, and named it Dallas. The Republic of Texas soon opened its Central National Road from here, drawing settlers with liberal land grants. Margaret Beeman, who married Bryan in 1843 and bore six children, and her Illinois-born family were staunch supporters of the man remembered as the "Father of Dallas"; she lived to age 94 and saw the city grow past 150,000.