Lilia and Josephine Casis
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Josephine (1873-1947) and Lilia (1869-1947) Casis were reared in Jamaica, where their European parents educated them in the classics, languages, and music, before they moved to Texas in 1890. Josephine earned a teaching degree and taught at Austin's Palm School for 33 years. Lilia pursued graduate studies in Europe and at the University of Texas, where in 1916 she became the first woman full professor. The Casis sisters left their estates to the University of Texas; in 1951 the Austin school district named Casis Elementary School in their honor. (1994)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Raised in Jamaica by European parents who steeped them in languages, the classics, and music, Josephine and Lilia Casis came to Texas in 1890 and gave their lives to education. Josephine taught for thirty-three years at Austin's Palm School, while Lilia pursued graduate study in Europe and at the University of Texas, where in 1916 she broke ground as the university's first woman full professor. The sisters left their estates to the university, and in 1951 an Austin school was named in their honor.
Why it matters
Lilia Casis's 1916 full professorship marks an early breach of one of higher education's firmest barriers to women, at a time when the academy was almost entirely male.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Josephine and Lilia Casis arrived in Texas in 1890, higher education in America was overwhelmingly a man's world. Women were entering colleges as students in growing numbers, but the faculty, and especially its senior ranks, remained almost entirely male.
The sisters brought with them an unusual formation. They had been reared in Jamaica, where their European parents educated them in the classics, in languages, and in music, the deep, old-fashioned liberal learning that few people of any background received.
They stepped into a Progressive-era Texas that was building its institutions, including a young state university in Austin. It was a moment when a woman with real learning and determination might, against the odds, find a place, and even open a door that had been closed.
People & events
The two sisters gave their lives to education, but along different paths. Josephine, born in 1873, earned a teaching degree and taught at Austin's Palm School for thirty-three years, a span long enough to shape entire generations of the city's children.
Lilia, born in 1869, pursued advanced study, first in Europe and then at the University of Texas. In 1916 she became the university's first woman full professor, a genuine breakthrough at a time when the very top of the academic ladder was reserved almost exclusively for men.
Their devotion to learning outlived them. Both sisters died in 1947, and they left their estates to the University of Texas, the institution Lilia had helped integrate at its highest rank. In 1951 the Austin school district named Casis Elementary School in their honor, carrying their name back into the classrooms where their life's work had always lived.
Its place in the American story
Lilia Casis's 1916 full professorship is a small event with a large meaning. Across American higher education, the full professorship was one of the firmest barriers women faced, and each early breach of it widened the path for those who came after.
The sisters' lives also trace an immigrant story. Educated abroad and arriving in Texas as young women, they poured what they had been given, languages, classics, music, disciplined learning, into the schools and university of their adopted home.
Together they embody a truth about how institutions actually change. Progress in the academy did not arrive all at once; it came person by person, one determined scholar at a time, and a family that chose to leave its legacy to education rather than to itself.
If you visit
Their memory lives most vividly in a place full of children: the elementary school named for them in 1951. There is something fitting about honoring two lifelong educators not with a hushed monument but with a school still in use, exactly the kind of place they served.
If you are exploring Austin's history beyond the capitol and the campus, the Casis story rewards a pause. It connects a long-serving neighborhood teacher and a barrier-breaking professor within a single family, two halves of what education can be.
Carry one date with you as you go: 1916, the year a woman first held a full professorship at the University of Texas. Knowing that, the sisters' name on a school and their gift to the university stop being trivia and become the visible end of a real and hard-won achievement.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Lilia Casis
- · Josephine Casis
Themes & tags
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