by Paul R. Spitzzeri
This morning, I joined members of the Biddy Mason Charitable Foundation, which works to assist those leaving the foster care system at that critical time in their lives, at Pershing Square, where Los Angeles City Council member Kevin de León, whose 14th District includes the area, held a press conference to announce a plan, to be submitted to the council on Friday.
This is to rename the site Biddy Mason Park, as well as having the adjacent Metro subway station and a several-block section of Spring Street named for the remarkable Black woman, who, between 1856 and her death in 1891, was a nurse, midwife, community builder, founder of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and wealthy downtown property owner. A memorial to Mason exists at Broadway and 3rd, where she owned valuable property, but it is hidden from view.
Foundation executive director Jackie Broxton, secretary Jefferson Cox, board members and others were on hand to show support, including a table with photos and information about Mason. The Biddy Mason Collaborative and its “Long Road to Freedom” project, which looks at the life and times of Mason in Los Angeles will soon produce a biography by Kevin Waite about her along with other initiatives and events.
It has been my pleasure to assist with research and write several posts on this blog under the heading of “The Black Pioneers of Los Angeles County” with topics including the enumeration of African-Americans in 19th century censuses as well as the education of Black children during that period.
After Council Member de León explained the effort, Mason’s great-great-great-great-granddaughters, sisters Cheryl and Robynn Cox spoke of the efforts to recognize their ancestor as a step towards addressing inequities in remembering Mason and other people of color, especially women, when it comes to memorializing them.
Obviously, we’ll see what the results are and it is hoped that, with business community support and the sheer merit of the idea, there will be a favorable reaction from the rest of the council. If successful, the site, already undergoing a renovation to the tune of tens of millions of dollars with a design called “Radical Flatness” by Agence Ter, a French architectural firm, will be transformed visually and interpretively.
Being there today was a reminder of the origins of what was Los Angeles’ second dedicated public space, after the Plaza (in fact, one term for it was La Plaza Abaja, or lower plaza.) There wasn’t much to look at, however, in 1866, when it was laid out between Hill and Flower and 5th and 6th streets, though, later, significant improvements were made to what as often known as Central, or Sixth Street, Park.
After the end of the First World War, city officials renamed it after John J. Pershing, the commanding general of the American Expeditionary Force that was decisive in ending the terrible conflict. As important as Pershing was as a national figure, however, the idea to honor and memorialize Mason is a recognition of her eminent local importance.
Another thought that came to mind this morning was that a change of the name is also a prime opportunity to recognize and interpret Mason’s contemporaries in the Black community during her lifetime. This could include the Owens, Hall, Ballard and other families, individuals like Lewis G. Green, Horatio Marteen, Jeremiah Redding, Peter Biggs and more—all of whom played various roles in the upbuilding of the growing city’s African-American community from a handful of residents to about 180 by 1880, but, then, to about 2,800 two decades later.
While there were several prominent Black males in prominent roles among the community in the Angel City during the last half of the 19th century, Mason has generally been considered the sole female of note. Important as she was, this post looks at another African-American woman who deserves remembrance, even if information about her (challenging as it can be generally for people of color and for women) can be somewhat difficult to obtain. This was Caroline C. Burton (1826-1891), who was several years younger than her contemporary and died nine months later.
Census records indicate that Burton (though listed as around fifteen years younger than the published death notice) hailed from Pennsylvania and, while nothing could be located to specify where, it does seem likely that she was from Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love is just 25 miles northeast of the border with Delaware, which was a slave state, so it can easily be imagined that she or her ancestors were able to leave bondage for freedom there. The 1850 census shows two Caroline Burtons, one 19 and the other 22 years of age and one of whom might be her, but there’s no way to confirm one way or another.
How Burton ended up in Los Angeles by 1870 is also an interesting, but perhaps unknowable, question. Chain migration is very typical and it may be that she had a connection to someone already residing in the Angel City and that this led her to the move west, which not only involved significant distant, but no small expense. In August 1870, we have our first two documents about her.
The first is an advertisement in the Los Angeles News of the 13th for her hairdressing business and which noted that Burton was an “importer of human hair, curls, braids and waterfalls of the latest styles.” The second is her enumeration five days later in the household of John and Mary Hall, who resided on the outskirts of town along what was called the “Santa Monica Road” and is now Pico Boulevard.
John Hall was listed as a laborer, the same occupation given on his 11 August registration to vote when he and other Black men had to fight to be registered as was their right under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified. Mary Hall was from New York, not far from Philadelphia, so one wonders if she was the connection to Burton.
Burton’s business was situated at 31 Main Street, soon renumbered to 131 North Main, being on the west side of the central thoroughfare just north of First Street and where the park is today just south of the City Hall, completed in 1928 on land that included the Temple Block. When the first Los Angeles city directory was issued in 1872, Burton’s address was shown as 129, showing that she lived adjacent to her place of business.
An ad from the News of 17 January 1872 showed the 131 address for her establishment, but was modified to indicate that the proprietor offered “tangled hair straightened and made up into any shape,” but also reflected an expanded range of goods and services, as Burton added that “PERFUMERIES, of the first quality, [are] on hand and for sale.”
By June 1872, a move had been made to 9 Spring Street “opposite the post office,” this latter located in the Temple Block on the east side of that street, so she was on the west side apparently not far south of Temple Street. Burton’s residence remained the same at 129 North Main, but her listing in the 1875 directory shows the Spring Street address, though whether she resided there as well is not known. When La Crónica began operating in May 1872 as the city’s sole Spanish-language newspaper, she took out ads in that sheet, as well, no doubt hoping to widen her clientele among Angel City Latinas.
An advertisement in the Los Angeles Star, the city’s oldest paper with origins in May 1851 and continuously published, except between 1864-1868, until 1879, and from July 1873 contained much the same wording as previous examples, but added that “the patronage of the ladies of this city and county is respectfully solicited.”
The 25 June 1874 edition of the Los Angeles Express had an ad that reflected another aspect of Burton’s enterprising entrepreneurship as it notified patrons that “CAROLINE C. BURTON has just returned from San Francisco with the largest assortment of HAIR GOODS ever offered for sale in this city, comprising HAIR SWITCHES, from $5 upward, PUFFS, CURLS, WATERFALLS, etc., etc. Also, MOHAIR GOODS of every description.” There had to have been a significant investment in capital for Burton to make the trip and purchase her stock.
The next change in location came in April 1877 when Burton moved from the Spring Street location to 145 N. Main, just a short distance north from where she’d been before. The following year’s directory also showed her at that address, though, unlike some persons whose business and residence locations were separate it is not clear whether this was the case for the hairdresser. In June 1878, Burton advertised for another removal, stating that her shop was at 137 N. Main, while that year’s directory gave an address, presumably residential, at 131.
At the opening of 1879, she changed her Star advertisement to state that her business was “New, Neat and Attractive” and added, “ladies, I am prepared to do HAIR-DRESSING in all its branches,” while noting that there were “new goods received weekly.” After exhorting female readers to “don’t fail to call,” the proprietor also offered that “all work [is] warranted” and the tone suggests that the tough times that afflicted the Angel City after the collapse of the boom lasting through 1875 (and included the failure of the Temple and Workman bank) led her to the change in policy and tone.
The 1880 census listed her at the 137 N. Main address, residing alone and living where she worked. This was the first year that indicated the place of birth of the parents and for Burton her father and mother were also shown as being natives of Pennsylvania. Allowing for the possibility that she didn’t know where they were from, it would appear, if true, that her parents were freeborn in the Quaker State sometime near the turn of the 19th century.
The 9 March 1881 edition of the Express contained an ad from Burton that announced a “Fashion Notice” in which “I have the pleasure to inform the LADIES that I have just received a splendid assortment of the new style of front pieces and ornaments, now the mode in Europe.” From August, however, Burton is absent from newspaper and city directory listings until 1886, suggesting the possibility that she left the city for some other place to do business as the economy continued to be stagnant, though she may simply have decided to economize in promotion of her business.
As oft-noted here, the completion by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad of a direct transcontinental line to Los Angeles from the east at the end of 1885 ushered in the much larger Boom of the Eighties. Whether she returned to the Angel City or reemerged from a period of not advertising her business, Burton was one of a slew of persons listed in the 1886 city director under “Hair-Dressers,” though the rest were men. Moreover, her address was given as 11 1/2 North Main, which could be indicative of a return and the reestablishment of her enterprise at a new location.
What she did not do for five more years, however, was advertise in the local papers, an indication, perhaps, of continued financial restraint. In the directories of 1887, 1888 and 1890, Burton was listed as remaining at the same location and these were the peak years of the aforementioned boom, during which the Angel City’s mayor was William H. Workman, nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste.
Then came the inevitable bust and Burton was absent from general references until the summer of 1891, when she began to advertise again with a renumbering of streets meaning that she was at 111 1/2 N. Main, that same northwest corner with 1st mentioned above. The Express of 10 July had a short statement about her hair-dressing and shampooing and “hair work of all kinds made to order in [the] best manner,” as well as the straightening of tangled hair into any style the patron wished.
After just a few months, however, Burton passed away with a death notice in the Los Angeles Herald of 25 October stating that she was 65 years old when she died the prior day and that “friends and acquaintances are respectfully invited to attend the funeral today” from the parlors of undertakers Orr and Sutch.
She was interred at Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights, but rests in an unmarked grave, and her modest estate, determined to be $2,140, was handled by Rosa Rising, wife of a real estate agent and who lived near Chinatown and next to today’s Union Station. The only known real property owned by Burton were two lots purchased for $200 in 1877 in the Fairmount Tract, situated east of MacArthur Park and west of Interstate 110 near Wilshire Boulevard.
With some two decades of running a business, with women hairdressers and male barbers among the few public professions accessible to African-Americans, as well as her obvious acumen and ability in staying abreast of changes in the industry, purchasing goods from San Francisco and advertising with no small degree of savvy and enterprise, Caroline C. Burton, even with a dearth of personal information about her, deserves remembrance as a Black woman entrepreneur of distinction and longevity in 19th century Los Angeles.