News from the DeGolyer Library November 2022

News from the DeGolyer Library

November 2022

Closing Soon!

The Joy of Cooking: Two Centuries of Cookbooks at the DeGolyer Library

The Joy of Cooking: Two Centuries of Cookbooks at the DeGolyer Library highlights some of the vast collection of cookbooks preserved in our library. These cookbooks are a storehouse of recipes, as well as a sign of technological, sociological, cultural, and economic change over time. From handwritten recipe collections and household guides of the 19th century, to ‘reducing’ cookbooks of the 1920s and the rationing cookbooks of World War II, this exhibit charts changing attitudes and approaches to homecooked meals. The Joy of Cooking exhibit also examines food communities in America, including Jewish cuisine, African American foodways, and church and community cookbooks. If we are what we eat, cookbooks can tell us much about our character in the past.

October 6 – December 22

Hillcrest Exhibit Hall, Fondren Library West

8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m., M- F

10:00-6:00, Saturday and Sunday

(closed during home games and holidays)

News and Notes

Ebby Halliday project archivist Krishna Shenoy’s latest blog post explores the creation of Thanks-Giving Square in downtown Dallas, and Ebby Halliday’s role in expanding the square during her tenure as Thanks-Giving Foundation Board President.

Click here to read the post.

Jose Altuve. Lance McCullers Jr. Aledmys Diaz. Trace the history of the Texas League players who have advanced to the Major League and on to the World Series with Cynthia Franco’s latest blog post, Texas League: We Knew Them When… which highlights former Texas League president Tom Kayser, whose papers on Texas League history were dontated to the DeGolyer Library in 2021.

“Everybody needs a shtick” was Ebby Halliday’s advice to others, and hers was the ukulele. In a recent blog post, Krishna Shenoy explores Ebby’s musical streak. By her own admission, Ebby couldn’t really play the ukulele or sing, but she would still charm audiences and employees with her interpretations of classic songs. Click here to learn more.

New Finding Aids and Collections

Recently Accessioned

A2022.0056c – Charles Dickens letter to James : manuscript forgery

A2022.0057X – Printer’s label samples for mill sacks

Collection Highlight

This cookbook contains three pages of handwritten cures possibly written by Mary Eversfield in 1824. The cures include instructions for bronchial colds and coughs, beef tea, a gargle for a sore throat, and dandelion tea. The rest of the volume contains handwritten recipes first collected by Isabella Bethune in 1849 and later by family members in 1919, recipes on loose paper, as well as news clippings. The majority of the recipes are for puddings and cakes, including cocoa nibs, Victoria pudding, ginger cakes, “a good ground rice pudding,” and more. Click here to view the cookbook in our digital collections.

New Accession

A three volume edition of James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson was recently added to the DeGolyer collection. Boswell (1740-1795) was a Scottish lawyer and diarist, and personal friend of Dr. Johnson (1709-1784), the celebrated intellectual and creator of A Dictionary of the English Language. Boswell met Johnson in 1763, and a friendship developed between the young man and the writer, who had become a celebrity in London. Boswell was already in the habit of keeping a daily diary, and interactions he had with Johnson were recorded in great detail. Upon Johnson’s death in 1784, there was a rush amongst Johnson’s literary friends to publish a biography of the man. Boswell’s was a relatively late entry, first published in 1791. Yet it was released to great acclaim, and has become the most widely read source on Johnson. What made Life stand out was that it captured conversations Boswell had with Johnson, as well as the personal observations of one friend describing another. This created an intimacy which set it apart from more detail-oriented biographies of the era, and led to its great acclaim–Boswell’s work is regarded by many as one of the greatest biographies of all time. Click here to learn more about our newly acquired edition.

Recently Digitized

140 images from the John Miller Morris Real Photographic postcards and Photographs of Texas collection were added to the digital library this month. If you’re from north Texas or the Panhandle, this accession is for you! The images feature towns including Silverton, Claredon, Archer City, and more, along with rural scenes of farms and prairies.