Historic Walker County

C H A P T E R
PROGRESS AND THE DAWN OF
A NEW CENTURY, 1900-1929
B Y P A T R I C I A S T A N I S Z E W S K I - H A L E
V
P R O G R E S S I V E E R A L E A D E R S
When Marcellus Foster graduated from Sam Houston Normal Institute in 1890, he had little
inkling of the dramatic events that lay in his future. After a stint with the Huntsville Item and a year
at the University of Texas, the young Huntsvillian moved to Houston and joined the staff at the city’s
largest newspaper, the Post. With a swift pen and a sharp mind, Foster rose quickly in the ranks,
becoming the youngest managing editor of a Texas newspaper in 1899 at the age of twenty-eight.
Under his leadership, the Post covered the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, keeping the citizens of the
nation informed about the devastated city. Shortly after the storm, Foster took his earnings from a
successful investment in the Spindletop oilfield and founded his own newspaper, the Houston
Chronicle. The young man from Huntsville soon had an afternoon paper that sold more than seven
thousand copies a day, and that was just for starters. Foster quickly established several other
businesses and became one of the city’s leading figures, fighting a valiant campaign against the Ku
Klux Klan and organized crime in Texas. 61
Foster was just one of the many successful individuals that emerged from Walker County during the
Progressive era at the dawn of the twentieth century. Another famous figure, Minnie Fisher Cunningham,
shared his broad vision and crusading spirit. Born in New Waverly in 1882, Cunningham became
immersed in the political sphere when her father took her to Democratic Party meetings. After graduating
from the University of Texas, Cunningham served as a pharmacist in Huntsville, where she quickly
learned the inequities facing women in the workplace. It was also in Huntsville that she met her husband,
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A view of Sam Houston Normal
Institute from the northeast,
about 1927.
COURTESY OF THE SAM HOUSTON STATE
UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES.
C h a p t e r V ✦ 2 7