Lucia Benton

That would be terrific! What a great thing you are doing! I would love to walk through. I would like to try to get inside as many of the extant buildings as possible- this is a great start. Though I know almost all of the houses have been altered, there is still no substitute for actually moving through the spaces to understand the scale and flow etc. And to see details up close. The houses are well known for their brick work, and I would like to find out who the masons were- she, apparently used the same crew over and over again. THANK YOU! I will send a separate note for details.

Simbha- Thank you for these links. This is the Cite article that is really the only focused look at the Motts that I am aware of. I have been slowly putting together the game plan for research - I'm sure I can figure out the ILL for local institutions- I have great reading privileges in NYC (NYU Bobst, MMA Watson, Parsons, and NYPL - and the online subscription databases), but it doesn't help me much if I'm down here! Also, with such regionally specific topic..... HMRC is planned this list this week. I really think I willl end up with mostly regional primary source information. I will keep you posted-can I contact you if I need help accessing UH??? (promising due credit, of course!)

Thank you- so glad to have joined. It's always nice to meet other people who care about these things. I have seen these and they were good starting points when deciding on the topic. I may be in for a serious amount of field work..... Thanks again!

Thank you so much! I am definitely hoping to find original docs at HMRC (HPL) and possibly in the Will Hogg Papers at UT. I know the Burns & James Papers are at the Indiana Historical Society. I haven't really done any digging at Rice or UH. My degree is actually out of state, though I'm a Houstonian, so I need to figure out how to get reading privileges (may not be a big deal). And you are right- she is just fascinating- someone who took on a man's business only a few years after women got the right to vote. This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. And will be happy to share my work when it gets done! thanks again

I am writing my master's thesis on the Houston houses of Katharine Mott. Hardly anything has been written about her (one Cite article by SF), so I am going to be relying largely on primary source information. I know serveral people who have posted here have an interest in work. If anyone has information, access to original plans, or any ideas at all about where to dig other than the obvious (HMRC), I would welcome and really appreciate hearing from you. She is a wonderful, sort of mysterious, part of Houston's history, and her houses really deserve to be saved. She also deserves to be written about because she demonstrated that you can build spec houses of integrity that will last- a lesson lost in this last 20 years of feverish building. THANKS in advance for your thoughts!