SMU’s Believe It Or Not! Part II

The bizarre. The strange. THE UNUSUAL.

Exhibit on display: June 9 – September 22, 2014, Fondren Library Center Lobby

All right here from the SMU Libraries. Spanning multiple collections (including the George W. Cook Collection, Blackie Sherrod Papers, Mary McCord/Edyth Renshaw Collection on the Performing Arts, and the SMU Archives) these items are among the many oddities held by the various libraries here on campus.

Examples from the Exhibit

SMU Toms: Blake Mycoskie ’99 received the Emerging Leader Award, which recognizes an outstanding alumnus or alumna for achievements within the past 15 years. (Distringuished Alumni Award) in November 2011. Blake Mycoskie entered SMU in 1995 and got his start as an entrepreneur while he was an undergraduate in Cox School of Business. He credits Jerry White’s entrepreneurship course in the Cox School with inspiring him to launch his own businesses and several times has returned to SMU to speak to White’s classes. Mycoskie’s first venture was a campus laundry service begun during his sophomore year at SMU and which expanded to seven universities. He launched several other businesses before establishing TOMS Shoes in 2006, combining business savvy with a humanitarian spirit. The idea grew from a trip to Argentina during which he saw countless children without shoes, unable to afford shoes. He returned to California with an inspiration to manufacture shoes based on a traditional Argentinean design and the commitment to give a pair of new shoes to a child in need for every pair sold. These are specially designed Tom’s given by Blake when he was awarded the Emerging Leader Award.

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Mary McCord/Edyth Renshaw Collection on the Performing Arts

Joan Blondell’s fake eyelashes

Hamon Arts Library

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Battleship picture puzzle cubes

New York : McLoughlin Bros., [between 1910 and 1919?]

1 puzzle, 6 chromolithographs : paper, wood, color ; in box 28 x 34 x 7 cm

This picture puzzle cube game by McLoughlin Brothers of New York is housed in a wood box with twenty 2.5 inch square wood blocks with a different U.S. battleship on each side. Laid in the bottom of the box are five 10 x 12.5 inch chromolithographs describing the Texas, Brooklyn, Oregon, Maine, and Olympia battleships. These prints are guides for arranging blocks in the proper order.

DeGolyer Library

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Matchbooks / Sivil’s tray / Life magazine cover

Sivil’s Drive In Restaurant was a Dallas institution for almost 30 years. It opened in 1940 at the corner of West Davis and Fort Worth Avenue on a three-acre lot. The attendants were called “curb girls” instead of car hops and wore specially tailored uniforms, one of whom was pictured on the cover of Life magazine in Feb., 1940.  Sivil’s closed in 1967, when Mr. and Mrs. Sivil retired.  This memorabilia is part of a large gift from the estate of Mr. George W. Cook. For most of his life, George W. Cook (1949-2012) collected Dallas and Texas primary sources. He had a special interest in photographs, postcards, advertising souvenirs, documents, art, postal history, and three-dimensional objects such as signs and architectural ornaments. He was also fascinated by the 1936 Texas Centennial, the State Fair of Texas, and the history of aviation. The strength of Cook’s collection lies in its visual images (over 2,200 photographs and 12,000 postcards, many real photographic postcards), but there are also significant manuscripts, diaries, albums, banknotes, ephemera, books, pamphlets, and broadsides. Chronologically, the collection ranges from a promissory note signed by Davy Crockett in Tennessee in 1829 to photographs of carhops at Sivil’s drive-in in mid-century Dallas. There are probably 20,000 items altogether. Not yet ready for research but the collection is being processed as we speak.

George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection

Gift, 2014

DeGolyer Library

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Hermes “Baby” Typewriter

Made in Switzerland

Ca. 1940s

Before there were laptops or I-pads, there were TYPEWRITERS! On display is a well-used and still functional model used by legendary sportswriter Blackie Sherrod, who used this piece of equipment in the pressbox of many a sporting event.

Blackie Sherrod was a Texas sports writer for almost six decades, writing for several newspapers, including both the Dallas Times Herald and the Dallas Morning News. The Blackie Sherrod papers contain his notes from his sports reporting; letters, mostly from the general public; newspaper clippings on a variety of issues; sports publications from various special events (e.g., official programs from Super Bowl games, golf tournaments, and college bowl games); and photos of Sherrod with friends, celebrities, and work associates. Sherrod has written in pencil on the inside cover: “New ribbon Tues., Apr. 12, 1955.”

Part of the Blackie Sherrod Papers. Gift, Blackie Sherrod, 2003.

DeGolyer Library

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King Arthur and His Knights

[game]

St. Louis: Northwestern Products, ca. 1950s?

Before there were videogames, there was PINBALL!  This exciting game would have kept Junior occupied for hours.  In the original box, with instructions for fun variations on the basic game. Part of the Frank Fogleman Collection on Arthurian Myth and Legend, which consists of over 1000 books, periodicals, and comics, as well as ephemera, art work, recordings, and games, with an emphasis on Arthur in popular culture.

Gift, 2011.

DeGolyer Library

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Coins of Palestine

[Place of production not identified] : [producer not identified], [1948?]

27 coins mounted on paper board with a mat overlay : color illustration ; 43 x 74 cm

This framed collection of 27 mounted coins of Palestine dated 1927-1935, has a gold illustration of Palestine printed in the middle on the mat overlay with this text: Palestine was lost to the Turks in 1917 during World War I. In 1920 the League of Nations placed it under a British Mandatory Government. In 1948, following the precepts of the Balfour Declaration, the new state of Israel became a home for Jews.

DeGolyer Library; gift, Helga Feldman, 2013

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All this on display… and more!

Related: SMU’s Believe It Or Not!  Exhibit Part I: June 25 – September 10, 2012