The Blue Bird Circle
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Blue Bird Circle is a non-denominational philanthropic women's organization dedicated to serving the needs of children. Since its organization in January 1923 under the auspices of First Methodist Church, volunteers have committed time and money to create a young women's co-operative home, a day nursery and the "Little Hospital" for crippled children. In 1949 the Circle founded a clinic for children with cerebral disorders that grew into the renowned Blue Bird Circle Clinic for Pediatric Neurology. The Circle continues to support the clinic and fund pediatric research at the Developmental Neurogenetics Laboratory and the Rett Center at Baylor College of Medicine. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in January 1923 under the auspices of Houston's First Methodist Church, the Blue Bird Circle is a philanthropic women's organization devoted to children's welfare. Its volunteers created a co-operative home, a day nursery, and a "Little Hospital" for children with disabilities. In 1949 the Circle founded a clinic that grew into a renowned center for pediatric neurology, and it continues to fund medical research today.
Why it matters
The Circle exemplifies how women's volunteer organizations built lasting institutions of pediatric care and medical research in twentieth-century America.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jones-Hunt House
Houston, TX
Houston architect Alfred C. Finn designed this Tudor Revival home after World War I for Sarah Jones, widow of state senator James W. Jones, folding the oak woodwork, windows, and grand staircase of the family's 1893 house into the new one. Sarah moved in with her daughter Irma and son-in-law William Hunt in 1921, and five generations of the family lived here until 1989. Its wide central gable, off-center entrance portico, and porte cochere mark the taste of Houston's interwar gentry.
Bryan-Chapman House
Houston, TX
In the prosperous Houston of the 1920s, sisters Caroline Bryan Chapman and Johnelle Bryan — figures in the city's growing arts scene — built themselves a fashionable home in the exclusive Courtlandt Place enclave. Its Mediterranean flourishes, arched windows and tile roof captured the era's taste for Old World romance, all designed by a young architect at the very start of his career. The sisters lived there only briefly before an oilman's family made it their home for decades.
John & Bessie Parker House
Houston, TX
In the 1920s, as oil-era Houston came into its own, attorney John Wilson Parker and his wife Bessie built an elegant Tudor Revival home designed in 1925 by the celebrated Houston architect John F. Staub. John had risen through Texas law to serve even as an alternate justice of the state Supreme Court, while Bessie helped nurture the city's cultural life as a charter member of the Houston Public School Art League. The brick house, with its steep roof and tall chamfered chimney, reflects the confident domestic architecture of a rising Southern metropolis.
Clayton, W. L. and Susan
Houston, TX
William Lockhart Clayton left school early to become a court reporter and rose to build Anderson, Clayton & Company into one of the world's great cotton firms, moving its headquarters to Houston in 1916 as the new ship channel opened. Drawn into government service, he became Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs under George C. Marshall and a principal architect of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt postwar Europe. His wife, Susan Vaughan Clayton, shaped the family's celebrated River Oaks homes and gave herself to philanthropy, women's suffrage, and the Houston Public Library, to which the couple bequeathed their home.