Digital Extra

 Christiana Carteaux Bannister (1819-1902)
A supporter of arts and social causes

  By KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer

Christiana Carteaux Bannister, a woman of social conscience and style, spent her life battling the same types of social inequities that continue today -- nearly a century after her death.

Whether it was speaking out against the meager salaries given Negro soldiers or creating a shelter for homeless colored women, much of her life was spent trying to help those less fortunate.

Little is known about the childhood of the Portsmouth native, who became a successful businesswoman in her 30s by operating a string of hair salons in Boston and Providence.

Christiana, who was part black and part Indian, soon became a supportive patron to an aspiring artist and free black man whom she hired to work as a barber in her Boston salon in 1853.

The artist, Edward M. Bannister, had migrated to Boston from Canada hoping to study art, but was unable to secure a studio apprenticeship or tutelage because those positions were not open to blacks.

In 1857, the couple married and Mrs. Bannister continued to operate her salons in Boston, Worcester and Providence while her husband quit his job as a barber to study and develop his talent full time.

"Madam Bannister's" hair salons specialized in preventing hair from turning gray or becoming diseased, and providing patrons the latest hairstyles; because hair salons were well-known meeting places for Abolitionists and the Bannisters spoke out against slavery, historians believe the couple were active in the antislavery movement.

Increasing racial tensions in Boston caused the couple to move to Providence in 1869, where Edward Bannister gained national acclaim as a painter of landscapes and seascapes, and helped to found the Providence Art Club and the Rhode Island School of Design.

In a biography by Juanita Marie Holland, Edward said of his wife that he "would have made out very poorly had it not been for her, and my greatest successes have come through her, either through her criticisms of my pictures, or the advice she would give me in the matter of placing them in public."

The Bannisters prospered, owning homes on Benevolent Street and near Narragansett Bay. They were active in amateur theater, choirs and art circles.

During the Civil War, Christiana became a leader in the movement to gain equal pay and benefits for soldiers in the 54th Regiment, which was the Negro regiment that distinguished itself in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, including the battle of Fort Wagner, S.C.

As president of Boston's Sanitary Fair of Colored Ladies, she also organized fund-raisers to provide emergency funds for wives and children of the underpaid soldiers.

In 1890, disturbed by the plight of homeless Negro domestic workers, Christiana was instrumental in the founding of the Home for Aged Colored Women, which is now known as Bannister House.

Edward Bannister died of a heart attack in 1901; Christiana died the next year, after becoming ill and moving into the rest home she helped to found. Historians do not know what became of her hair salons, but she is believed to have died poor.

Sources: Edward Mitchell Bannister 1828-1901, by Juanita Marie Holland for Kenkeleba House of New York; " 'An ornament and honor to her sex': New England Women from Valley Forge to Fenway Park," a history curriculum researched and written by Jane Lancaster; and "A Heritage Discovered - Blacks in Rhode Island," by Rowena Stewart for the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society.

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