Historic Landmark Commission to honor Russell Lee, iconic American photojournalist

The longtime home of one of history’s most prolific photojournalists may soon be crowned a local landmark, thanks to a vote at last week’s Historic Landmark Commission.

The 110-year-old home, located at 3110 West Ave., secured the commission’s blessing due to its long-standing association with iconic photographer Russell Lee and his wife Jean, a notable figure in Texas politics. The powerhouse couple resided there for nearly four decades, crafting a cultural legacy that continues to define the mid-20th century in American history books.

Lee’s photography career was mobilized largely by a New Deal program called the Farm Security Administration, founded in 1937 to tackle the widespread economic crisis ravaging the country’s rural working class. Those who grew up learning about the Great Depression and Dust Bowl in American public schools have likely seen the handiwork of the program’s team of photographers, which included the legendary Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein and Dorothea Lange. 

To date, the FSA’s trove of photographs remains the largest collective photojournalism project in history, renowned for its humanizing portrait of an impoverished yet resilient rural America. Lee’s career is an impressive storyboard of the dynamic mid-20th century, capturing glimpses of both brutality and community in his snapshots of the coal mining industry in Kentucky, the racially tense Jim Crow era in Oklahoma, Japanese incarceration camps in eastern California and the homesteads of rural New Mexico. 

In 1949, Lee and his wife Jean landed at 3110 West Ave., just north of the University of Texas campus where Lee would soon become the art department’s first professor of photography. Jean Smith Lee, a journalist hailing from Dallas, pursued her own career in politics, managing campaigns for the ceiling-shattering City Councilwoman Emma Long and Texas Democrat Ralph Yarborough.

“Russell is Texas’s most significant photographer, and Jean could be seen as one of those pioneering women of Texas … a mentor to Ann Richards who did an enormous amount of good for the city,” said Simon Atkinson, who lives in the landmarked Penn House next door. “But it is a piece of history that never happened that I’d like to mention: The evening that President Kennedy was assassinated, he was going to be hosted by Jean and Russell Lee at 3110 West Avenue.”

Commissioners unanimously voted to recommend the historic zoning case, citing both its associations with the Lees as well as prior owner Ada Penn, whose efforts in development and home design were formative for the then-nascent neighborhood.

“This is kind of an underappreciated neighborhood, and it’s great to have that core Heritage House, the Penn House, right next door,” said Commissioner Kevin Koch. “Hopefully the two can be at the center of a local historic district in the future.”

Commissioners will revisit the case for a final vote at next month’s meeting, at which point it will travel to Planning Commission and then City Council. In the meantime, readers can browse the relics of Lee’s prolific career via the Texas State Digital Collections Library or listen to a number of panel discussions available free on YouTube.

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Posted In: Preservation, District 9