News from the DeGolyer Library December 2021

An Eye for Elegance, Carrie Marcus Neiman and the Women Who Shaped

Neiman Marcus

This December, DeGolyer Library premiered a new exhibit, An Eye for Elegance. The exhibit explores the life and legacy of Carrie Marcus Neiman, who with her brother Herbert Marcus, Sr. and her husband Al Neiman, founded the iconic luxury department store Neiman Marcus. The trio opened the high end, ready-to-wear store in 1907. At the time, women who could afford luxury clothing had them custom made in New York and Paris, Dallas was still a mid-sized regional hub, and oil wealth hadn’t yet come to Texas. An Eye for Elegance explores how Carrie, along with buyer Moira Cullen, fashion promotions director Kay Kerr, interior designer Eleanor LeMaire and food director Helen Corbitt shaped the fashions and tastes of their clients and society.

We were thrilled to host Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson and her staff for a visit to view An Eye for Elegance this month. Congresswoman Johnson served in the Texas House of Representatives, Texas Senate, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas’s 30th congressional district since 1993.

The congresswoman, who earned a Master of Public Administration from SMU, worked for Neiman Marcus in 1972, in a position offered to her by Stanley Marcus on the condition that she run for office (she was elected to the legislature that year.) During her long career she chaired the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Science Committee.

Design historian Alessandra Wood worked with the Stanley Marcus papers and J.C. Penney records when researching her study on the evolution of mid-century retail design and merchandising displays, and how this change influenced consumer habits.

The late Karen Blumenthal used the Vivian Castleberry papers and Virginia Whitehill clippings collection to tell the story of Roe V. Wade and the continuing legal battles over reproductive rights in this book written for young adults.

SMU English Professor Emma Wilson highlighted the Ron Davis Oral History collection in her guide to the digital humanities for librarians, which advocates for the academic and pedological possibilities this emerging field offers.

The papers of Robert T. Hill provided half the narrative in this history of the clash between Hill and renowned geologist Bailey Willis over a critical question about California and the next ‘Big One’, set against the rise of modern seismology.

The papers and photographs of Sir Ellice Victor Sassoon were a major source for this history of the Sassoon and Kadoorie families in Shanghai at the outbreak of World War II, where monumental change upended their respective business and social empires.

This biography of Johnny Jenkins drew from his papers, preserved at the DeGolyer. Author Michael Vinson explores how Jenkins rose to the top of the rare Americana trade, become entangled with the FBI, ATF, and the mafia, and tries to find the truth behind Jenkins’s violent death on the banks of the Colorado River.

Columbia University professor Frank Guridy worked closely with University Archivist Joan Gosnell and SMU Sports Hall of Fame director Gerry York when researching his study on how the growth of professional sports, set against the social changes of the 1960s and 70s, took root in Texas.

Collection Highlight

An extra dose of holiday cheer comes courtesy of the Stephen Weeks Charles Dickens collection, containing more than 700 volumes, including first editions and parts editions of most of his works, with a focus on The Pickwick Papers. Included are multiple editions of A Christmas Carol, with many featuring the famous illustrations by John Leech, including Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball.

Recent Accessions

We’re proud to present a recently acquired, translated, and digitized manuscript, “Memorandum de los sucesos acaecidos al suscrito, en el tiempo que ha andado de revolucionario en contra del llamado Gobierno Constitucionalista, presidido por el arbitrario (Memorandum of the events that occurred during the time I was a revolutionary against the so-called Constitutionalist Government headed by the arbitrary Venustiano Carranza) written by Antero M. Valle and translated by Jonathan Angulo, a PhD candidate in History at SMU. The manuscript recounts events from 1916 to 1920, with a first hand account of skirmishes and battles, illuminated by eye-catching illustrations of locations and surroundings. Click here to view the catalog record, and click here to view the manuscript.

Newly Digitized Items

22 images from the Alvin Colt Design Drawings and Photographs for Neiman Marcus Fortnights collection were added to the Digital Library this month. The images show interiors and design plans for the 1966 French Fortnight, which included displays of French couture, champagne, cars, fine arts, and even a French book store, pictured here.