Who Told Biddy Mason's Story?
Artist Barbara Carrasco’s once-censored mural, L.A. History: a Mexican Perspective, now on view at NHM, features a portrait of the formerly enslaved woman who fought her way to freedom. But where did Mason's story come from? Who helped preserve this history while others tried to suppress it?
1981-1983
In 1981, while working on a commissioned mural meant to reveal two centuries of Los Angeles history, the artist had to defend the appearance of an African American woman—a mother and former slave who was likely the only successful and wealthy self-made woman of 19th century Los Angeles.
Before Carrasco touched paintbrush to canvas, she did her research. Knowing she was about to create a visual historical narrative, she took the steps of a professional historian—rely on historical scholarship, speak with community groups and obtain archival materials. Then she was ready to incorporate “basic history” onto the mural, as she was often quoted as saying.
William Mason (no relation), a seasoned curator at NHM who specialized in L.A. history, guided her research and very likely supplied her with the picture of Biddy. Carrasco’s public art piece was eventually shelved, but attention to Biddy came in other ways. The California Historical Society published a bicentennial issue of their journal in Spring 1981 and devoted two articles to her integral role in the growth of L.A. In 1983, Biddy’s portrait appeared in Spectrum/200: Photographs from the History of Los Angeles 1860-1940, published by the organizers for the 200th anniversary of the founding of the city, the Los Angeles 200 Committee, as the city was gearing up to host the Summer Olympic Games in the following year.
1969-1974
A definitive history book released in 1974 had a detailed account of Biddy’s arrival in California as a slave and her life as a freed individual. Los Angeles, Epic of a City, was the work of Lynn Bowman. Her book has been well-cited by generations of historians. As the chronology here continues backward in time, the year 1969 at NHM was pivotal to convey a rich history locally and nationally through a groundbreaking exhibition “America’s Black Heritage” held December 1969 through March 1970 (extended from February due to the high volume of school tours). The exhibition came at the heels of a series of tragedies: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the Watts Riots in 1965 and the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Russell Belous and Burton Reiner developed the national scope, while William Mason curated the local sections on Black Angelenos. The exhibit was the first of its kind by a major museum. (A museum at Exposition Park that focused on Black culture and history would not be realized until 1981 when 4,800 square feet were allotted within the California Museum of Science and Industry, and the opening of the standalone California African American Museum came in 1984.) Notably the development of the temporary exhibit counted upon community members, particularly Miriam Matthews, who lent the museum the only known portrait of Biddy. Matthews had a long career with the Los Angeles Public Library as she was their first Black librarian hired in 1927. To underscore Matthews’ contribution, this show was likely the first time Biddy came on view in a major exhibit.
Photo courtesy of Seaver Center for Western History Research
History staff pictured in 1963, L to R: Ruth Mahood, Burton Reiner, Russell Belous and William Mason.
Photo courtesy of the Natural History Museum
Exhibit cover from America’s Black Heritage, 1969
Photo courtesy of Judith Sedwick/Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
Miriam Matthews
Book jacket photo courtesy of NASA/Weile Studio.
Lynn Bowman
1957
Black History Month was established in 1976. Before then every February was slated for Negro History Week. On February 11, 1957 there was a gathering at NHM, and Kenneth Hahn, then Los Angeles City Councilman, unveiled a plaque honoring Biddy in a presentation to her descendants, Gladys Owens Smith and Linda Spikes Cox.
Photo courtesy Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection, UCLA Library Special Collections
Linda Spikes Cox presented with the plaque by NHM Director Jean Delacour, 1957
Photo courtesy Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection, UCLA Library Special Collections
Councilman Kenneth Hahn and Gladys Owens Smith both holding the plaque, 1957
Photo courtesy Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection, UCLA Library Special Collections
Gladys Owens Smith (6th from the right), Councilman Kenneth Hahn (5th from the right), NHM Director Jean Delacour (4th from the right) and Linda Spikes Cox (front center), 1957
1930s-1940s
These decades marked the creation of two biographical art pieces. About 1949, Beulah Woodard, an L.A. based painter and sculptor designed a cast in the likeness of Biddy with an ox and a nude child. It was acquired by the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, a Black enterprise. Bay-area artist Bernard Zakheim’s 1936 “History of Medicine in California” is a ten-panel mural in which the sixth panel depicted Biddy, a nurse working alongside Dr. John Griffin.
1909-1919
The bodies of knowledge gathered by two California women are the original points of discovery for what we know about Biddy, as well as other Black settlers to Los Angeles and the state: Delilah Leontium Beasley and Kate Bradley Stovall. Each of their works, described below, carried the portrait of Biddy.
A who’s who of early Black Angelenos, Beasley’s The Negro Trail Blazers of California was self-published in Los Angeles in 1919. She lived in Oakland, and she wrote for several newspapers including a column in the Oakland Tribune throughout the 1920s and a Black paper, Oakland Sunshine. She relied on many friendships in southern California as she struggled financially and health-wise in the nearly twenty years of researching and writing that included visits to UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library and travelling by “railroad or horse and buggy” to all corners of California to interview residents. The foreword to the 317-page book was expressed with eloquent words of admiration by fellow journalist, Charlotta Bass.
Importantly, Beasley had obtained details about Biddy and family from a surviving daughter, Ellen Owens Huddleston, and this published account has since provided facts to countless historians.
In the pursuit of information she also uncovered many other instances of slaves entering California in the mid-1800s, including gold miners, and who eventually paid their masters to free themselves. Her book contained “freedom papers” including ones found in the state archives and located for her by Owen Coy. Coy later taught at USC, and concurrently between 1926 to 1929 he was a history curator at NHM (then called the Museum of History, Science and Art). Coy (in 1916) and Beasley (in 1918) were among the first to publish journal articles concerning slavery in the state.
Photo courtesy Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection, UCLA Library Special Collections
Delilah Leontium Beasley, ca. 1919
Photo courtesy of HathiTrust
Cover of The Negro Trail Blazers of California, 1919
Kate Bradley settled in the city as a child, married in 1904 to William Stovall and raised two children before dying at age 30. She was an outspoken advocate for the education of her race, especially women, as a solution to racial conflicts. An article she penned appeared in the Los Angeles Times on February 12, 1909, titled “The Negro Woman in Los Angeles and Vicinity - Some Notable Characters, Both Refined and Cultured in Life.” The story started off with a lengthy profile on Biddy. Although the prominent and respected Biddy was reported in numerous newspaper articles while alive and following her death, Stovall’s writing represents the earliest historical narrative of Biddy.
Some Final Words on Historical Scholarship
Delilah Beasley was impressed and aware of Kate Stovall’s newspaper article. Sadly, she included the deceased Stovall in the book with words of posthumous honor. Beasley and Stovall were credited by J. Max Bond in his 1936 USC dissertation, The Negro in Los Angeles. Sue Bailey Thurman researched Beasley’s book to publish Pioneers of Negro Origin in California in 1949.
Librarian Miriam Matthews was aware of The Negro Trail Blazers of California. After all, her massive personal archive included the portraits of Bass, Beasley and Stovall. She may have informed the curators at NHM during the 1960s in greater ways than we will ever know. Lynn Bowman researched Beasley’s work and also cited the “America’s Black Heritage” exhibit in her 1974 book. By 1981, Barbara Carrasco stood on solid research ground.
