CUL Digital Collections Update: August 2017

In August 2017, SMU’s Central University Libraries uploaded 445 items into CUL Digital Collections.

Highlights include:

177 items from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection as part of the TexTreasures FY2017 grant program, sponsored by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Uploaded from the Cook Collection are 50 real photographic postcards depicting people, places, and events throughout Texas during the first two decades of the 20th century, including the communities of Hubbard City, Hughes Springs, Hutto, Irving, Italy, Itasca, Johnson City, Jourdanton, Junction, Kerrville, Killeen, Kingsville, Kirbyville, Kyle, Ladonia, La Grange, Lamesa, Lampasas, Lipscomb, Llano, Lockhart, Lone Oak, Lott, Lufkin, and Luling. Places include homes, cotton yards, cotton gins, churches, railroad depots, a blacksmith shop, hotels, a restaurant, main streets, town squares, city halls, courthouses, public schools, bridges, dams, lakes, and spillways. Of special note is Gasoline and Dynamite Explosion, Destroying H. E. & W. T. Depot., which shows part of the aftermath of the 1913 explosion in Lufkin, Texas, when the Houston East and West Texas train depot was destroyed.

Also uploaded from the Cook Collection are 127 photographs, ca. 1932-1941, from the Graphic History of Negro Dallas album, compiled by the Priscilla Art Club. While the entire album was uploaded previously, the individually scanned photographs provide greater visual detail of the people, events, and places depicted.  Included among the photographs are members of the Priscilla Art Club and their homes, members of the “Old Families” in the African American communities of Dallas, other homes, businesses, churches, schools, a library, educational and recreational centers, artists and their works, and the 30th Anniversary of the Priscilla Art Club held in 1941. Of special note is Donna Louise Taylor and her works, an ink drawing and a poem.

12 items from the Standard Club Records have been added to the Archives of Women of the Southwest digital collection. The Standard Club, founded in 1886, is one of the oldest women’s organizations in Dallas. Highlights include the minutes of the Standard Club from 1886 through 1889, included in a scrapbook with miscellaneous newspaper clippings, and a group portrait of the members dating ca. 1900.

30 photographs, 1970s-1980s, from the Kenda North Photographs collection depicting a variety of sunbathers as well as models posing in the Kress Building, a historic Art Deco building located in downtown Fort Worth, were also added to the Archives of Women of the Southwest digital collection.

35 photographs and postcards, 1914-1938, from the Elmer and Diane Powell Collection on Mexico and the Mexican Revolution, including:

13 photographs, 1921-1938, showing scenes from post-revolution conflicts in Mexico, including images of the Cristero War, a religious revolt which took place from 1926-1929 (Note: Some items are restricted to on-campus viewing due to permissions). Notable images include a photograph of United States troops stationed near the border in Arizona during the Cristero War, an image of federal troops entrenched in Coahuila, Mexico, and an image of officers from the Mexican federal forces directing fire from the roof of a hotel in Juarez.

22 photographs and postcards, 1914, featuring images from the Battle of Ojinaga, a conflict between the Mexican federal troops and revolutionary forces led by Pancho Villa. These images depict the aftermath of the battle, including scenes of the battlefield and American soldiers escorting Mexican refugees over the border and to Marfa, Texas. A particularly striking image shows a group of female Mexican refugees and an American soldier looking back at Mexico from across the Rio Grande, near Presidio, Texas.

2 panoramic photographs were added to the U.S. West- Photographs, Manuscripts and Imprints collection. The first image shows the downtown area of Las Vegas, New Mexico from the early 20th century, and the second image shows the camp set up by U.S. troops on the Arizona/Mexico border at Nogales during the Mexican Revolution. Marked in the photo, left to right, are the 5th, 2nd, and 7th California regiments.

98 images from the Octavio Medellin Art Work and Papers collection, primarily from the 1950s to the mid-1990s, comprised of both artwork and photographs of family and friends. Of particular note are two photographs taken before Hemisfair ’68, which are of artist Carlos Merida, his wife Dalila, and Merida’s mural titled, ‘’The Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas.’’ Additionally, there is a small set of photographs of the Millard Sheets murals installed in the Mercantile National Bank Building in 1957, as well as two rare color images of a handwoven Aubusson tapestry, designed by Sheets, which also hung in the building. Unfortunately, the tapestry did not survive the building’s partial demolition in 2006, but the murals were salvaged and are now part of the art collection of the Joule Hotel in downtown Dallas.

A new digital collection, Southern Methodist University Rotunda Yearbooks, has been created to share the historical SMU yearbooks with the campus community and beyond. Scanning and original hosting of the 1916-2005 Rotundas was made possible by a generous gift from Richard Ware, SMU class of 1968. The project was done for the SMU Centennial Celebration, 2011-2015. The collection currently features 90 yearbooks, from the first Rotunda in 1916 through the 2005 edition, with a full-text search available. More volumes will be added each year.