Remembering Madison - Image Gallery Essay
The Lloyd Jones Family Album
Richard Lloyd Jones at his desk, 1916.
Madison, Wisconsin. Editor of the Wisconsin State Journal. View the original source document: WHI 3879
From about July 1911 until August 1919 the Richard and Georgia Lloyd Jones family lived in Madison, Wisconsin. This gallery contains just under 200 images of their time in the Madison area. Richard (1873-1963) and Georgia (1875-1967) took photographs of their three children Dick, Jenkin and Florence. They also took photographs of their two homes (941 Harvey Terrace and the exterior and interior of 1010 Walker Court, now Rutledge Court, on the north shore of Lake Monona) as well as their neighbors and relatives. The collection also features one prominent out of town visitor — Booker T. Washington — when he stayed with the family while lecturing in Madison.
Booker T. Washington with Dick and Jenkin Lloyd Jones, 1914
Madison, Wisconsin. View the original source document: WHI 54208
They recorded family excursions in their automobile to the Henry Vilas Zoo, the University of Wisconsin campus, the State Fish Hatchery, Tenney Park, Brittingham Park on Monona Bay, the Yahara River and its chain of lakes, and possibly the first airplanes to land in Madison. The primary photographer, probably Richard Lloyd Jones, documented the city's railroad lines and stations, public and private buildings, homes, street scenes and winter scenes. When the family moved to Tulsa Oklahoma in 1919, they drove by way of Janesville and Chicago, taking photographs along the way.
About the Madison Album
Sometime after settling in Tulsa, the Lloyd Jones family created the Madison Album. It contains 117 pages, with one or more photos per page. Most of the photographs (5" x 3" or smaller) look like "snapshots," while those depicting the exteriors and interior of the family's Madison homes (8" x 6") appear to have been taken by a professional photographer. Captions in white ink — several of which are quoted with the photographs — probably were written when the album was compiled. Other captions typed on white paper labels were most likely added later, possibly after a return visit to Madison. The typed captions where most likely added by Richard's younger son, Jenkin, and Jenkin's daughter, Georgia Lloyd Jones Snoke. Following her father's death in 2006, Georgia donated the Madison Album to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Brief Biography of Richard Lloyd Jones
Richard Lloyd Jones (1873-1963) was born in Janesville Wisconsin and grew up in Chicago. He was the son of Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones and Susan Barber Lloyd Jones. He attended the University of Wisconsin from 1893 to 1894 and graduated from the Chicago Law School in 1897. He was an editor of "Cosmopolitan Magazine" from 1902 to 1903 and writer and associate editor for "Collier's Weekly" from 1903 to 1911 in New York City. Richard Lloyd Jones married Georgia Hayden of Eau Claire, Wisconsin on April 30, 1907. Their first child, Richard "Dick" Lloyd Jones, Jr., was born in 1909 in Nyack, N.Y.
500 Block of East Wilson Street, 1918 ca.
A view looking west up the 500 block of East Wilson Street. View the original source document: WHI 55076
In 1911, wishing to run his own newspaper, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and bought the "Wisconsin State Journal" from Amos P. Wilder. He became the newspaper's editor and publisher. Richard was a friend of Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr. and championed progressive causes in the newspaper. While in Madison the Jones' had a son in 1911, Jenkin "Jenk" Jones, and a daughter in 1913, Florence (known as "Bis" or "Bisser").
Richard hired William T. Evjue as city editor of the "Wisconsin State Journal," but after a six-year friendship, Evjue and Jones parted company, primarily over their differing views on La Follette's opposition to American involvement in World War I. Evjue, who supported La Follette, left the "Wisconsin State Journal" and in 1917 started "The Capital Times." which, along with the "Madison Democrat," competed with the "Wisconsin State Journal" for readership and advertising.
In 1919 Jones, after publically opposing his friend and former governor Robert La Follette, sold his Madison paper to the Lee Newspaper Syndicate and bought the "Tulsa Democrat," (which he later renamed the "Tulsa Tribune"). He then moved his family to Oklahoma. Richard Lloyd Jones's cousin was the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1928 Wright designed a house for the family in Tulsa, which they called "Westhope". Many of Richard's descendants still live in the Tulsa area.