Meet Ima Hogg
Ima Hogg may have had an unfortuate name, but she was one of the most respected Texas women of the 20th century. Born in the small town of Mineola, Texas in 1882, the daughter of a former Texas governor, Hogg spent her life and a considerable fortune working to improve educational and cultural life as well as mental health in Texas and the nation.
"Miss Ima" loved music and studied it extensively. In 1895, Hogg entered the Coronal Institute of San Marcos. Later in 1899, she attended the University of Texas at Austin. In 1901 she moved to New York City to study music, and continued her studies in Vienna and Berlin from 1907-1909. Hogg then returned to Texas, where she helped found the Houston Symphony Orchestra, which played its first concert in 1913. She became the president of the Houston Symphony Society in 1917.
Hogg was an extremely generous philanthropist. In 1929, she founded the Houston Child Guidance Center, which provided counseling for mentally ill children and their families. A survivor of mental illness herself, she founded the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas at Austin. She also donated the land and facilities for UT's Winedale Center, a division of the Center for American History and now the site of the acclaimed Shakespeare at Winedale program.
Miss Ima, often called, "The First Lady of Texas," held many positions of authority over the years, an enormous feat for a woman in those times. She became a member of the Houston school board in 1943, where she worked to establish music and art programs for area children and to institute equal pay policies for teachers, regardless of race or sex. She also regained her position as president of the Houston Symphony Society in 1946, and remained in that position for a full decade. In 1948, she became the first woman president of the Philosophical Society of Texas. In 1960, she was appointed by President Eisenhower to serve on a committee to plan the National Cultural Center, now called the Kennedy Center, in Washington D.C.
Hogg received many awards for her contributions to the community, including the Santa Rita Award, given by the UT system for contributions to higher education, and the Thomas Jefferson Award, given by the National Society of Interior Designers for her contribution to cultural heritage. She also received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Southwestern University in 1971, four years before her death from a car accident. Her work lives on through the Ima Hogg Endowment, the major beneficiary in her will, which funds children's mental health services in the Houston area.
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