Austin, Lucille Carroll

Lucille Carroll Austin was an enterprising young woman whose professional ambitions led her to great success in the advertising and real estate businesses. Her development and participation in her own and others' business ventures occasioned her to collect documents that relate facets of the business community and economy in Austin, Texas, from 1972 to 1987.

She was born in Texas yet she and her siblings were raised in the North and Midwest regions of the country. The Carroll family had resided in Texas for several generations; her great-great-grandfather, Thomas B. Carroll, lived in Ellis County, Texas, until his death in 1891, and her grandmother was raised in Austin. Lucille's father, Thomas G. Carroll, met Lucille's mother in college at the University of Texas at Austin.

Following her graduation from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Flossmoor, Illinois, in 1968, Lucille Carroll returned to Texas to study Studio Art at the University of Texas at Austin. As a student, she produced several significant works that demonstrated her talent in the graphic arts and advertising. In 1972 she contributed design, copy, and format for two UT exhibition catalogs. The first supported an exhibit of paintings by Augustus Vincent Track; the second supported an exhibition titled "The Twenties: the Thirty-First Annual Fine Arts Festival".

After receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1972, Lucille began work as a graphic artist for Lacy, Skloss, and Plueckham, Incorporated advertising agency. On December 22, 1973, she married Clifford Eugene Taylor and by the spring of 1974, they opened their own advertising agency, Taylor, Carroll and Associates. The agency maintained office space on the seventh floor of the Littlefield building in downtown Austin. Their primary clients were small businesses, particularly restaurants in central Austin. She designed menus, flyers, newspaper and magazine ads, and radio and television spots. Utilizing her draftsman skills, her creativity, and sense of humor, Lucy Taylor received several awards for her work in advertising.

In 1978 Taylor, Carroll and Associates stopped formal business operations and Lucille and her husband, Eugene, both shifted their careers to the real estate business. Both the Taylors were employed by Anderson-Wormley, a predominantly African-American real estate company located on Airport Boulevard. Lucille was trained as a sales agent; she listed and represented properties primarily located in the Lakewood subdivision. She also designed advertisements, forms, and highlight sheets for the realty company.

In 1980, Lucille joined the Heagerty Company Realtors. The Heagerty Company invested heavily in Lucille's training as a realtor. She put to use her graphic design skills and designed many highlight sheets, forms, and training packets, as were as addressing realtor functions ranging from soliciting out-of-town clients to advising buyers on insurance.

In 1983 Dean Schmidt Reality located in Houston, Texas, opened an additional office in Austin. Dean Schmidt hired Lucille as the general sales manager. Dean Schmidt was building and marketing new homes, sometimes entirely new subdivisions (including the Mesa Ridge subdivision in 1984). Due to the failed Texas' oil economy and the eventual failing of bank and trusts, as well as realty companies, Dean Schmidt closed business in Austin.

In 1985 Lucille shifted her career again and became the first commissioned loan officer for M&T (Mortgage and Trust). This third career utilized her cumulative knowledge and experience with both interim financing for the builders as well as mortgage financing for customers.

Lucille moved to Pennsylvania in 1987 with her second husband, taking the name Lucille Carroll Austin. In a letter that accompanied the donated material in 1994 she provided current information on her life. She was working as a volunteer at the Chester County Historical Society in West Chester, Pennsylvania managing the Society's Museum Shop.