News from the DeGolyer Library August 2019

The DeGolyer Library and renowned collector Robert Harris are marking the bicentennial of Walt Whitman’s birth with “All Goes Onward and Outward”: Walt Whitman at 200 . Mr. Harris has selected some of the treasures from his collection, ranging from the 1855 edition of  Leaves of Grass  to a souvenir viewbook on the 1957 opening of the Walt Whitman Bridge over the Delaware River.

On display will be rare books, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, posters, and photographs, all documenting Whitman’s place in American literature and culture. We are grateful to Mr. Harris not only for his curatorial expertise and generosity in lending parts of his collection but also for his estate plans, which will keep his collection intact in the DeGolyer Library where it will be preserved and available for future generations.

University Archivist Joan Gosnell, Archives of Women of the Southwest Curator Samantha Dodd, and Librarians Ada Negraru and Cynthia Franco recently attended the 2019 Society of American Archivists annual meeting, just down the road in Austin, Texas.

The theme for this year’s conference was TRANSFORMATIVE! and revolved around the issues of inclusivity, accountability, and creating space for underrepresented voices in the archives. Educational sessions staff attended included: a congressional papers working group, a panel on enhancing the value of archives through technical services, and a section meeting on locating records of under-documented women.

The discussion in Austin on these various issues yielded workflows, and practical next steps to improving representation and access in the archives. Staff happily reported that Austin also yielded great tacos.

An image from the DeGolyer Library’s George W. Cook Dallas-Texas Image Collection, was featured in Nikole Hannah-Jones’ stirring essay, America Wasn’t a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One, which opens the New York Times’ 1619 Project. The 1619 Project marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia, and argues that this event marks the true birth of America.

(Warning, the image featured is disturbing)

July 20th marked the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, which inspired Ada Negraru to look at the role Texas Instruments played in the space race. Read NASA’s Part Supplier to learn more.

The DeGolyer houses 150,000 rare books, and librarians often come across notes written on the pages of those works. In Maximum Marginalia , Christina Jensen explores what may be the most heavily annotated book in our collection.

In 1863, British geologist Roderick Murchison was having dinner at Alnwick Castle with the Duchess of Northumberland (as one does) when he described once meeting Czar Nicholas I. The duchess wanted to know more, so Murchinson bound his contemporary notes on the meeting and gifted them to her. Now part of the DeGolyer collection, the notes recount his lengthy conversation with the Czar in 1844, where the two men discussed young Queen Victoria, the state of continental European politics, and the recent death of the Czar’s daughter, Princess Alexandria. Click here to learn more.

This photo of the Newkirk, Oklahoma women’s basketball team of 1911 recently arrived in our mailbox. Interested in exploring sports history at the DeGolyer? We’ve got the papers and library of legendary Dallas sports reporter Blackie Sherrod . Or learn about women’s sports and the fight for Title IX at SMU through the Nancy Kruh papers .

52 hand-colored prints from the Jack and Beverly Wilgus History of Photography Collection were added to the digital library last month. The prints were taken in Japan circa 1895, and feature well known places like Tokyo, Kyoto, and the Itsukushima Shrine in Miyjima.