News from the DeGolyer Library January 2023

It’s been a busy winter for the DeGolyer Prints and Photographs department, with requests for photographs coming from across the globe. The Jewish Museum in New York requested an image from our Sir Victor Sassoon collection for their upcoming exhibit, The Sassoons. Here in Dallas, Neiman Marcus requested multiple images and information to document the history of the department store and the Marcus family. If you’d like to explore that subject, check out our online exhibit An Eye for Elegance, about Carrie Marcus Neiman, pictured right. Further afield, a PhD candidate at the University of Heidelberg, Germany requested a picture of the Villa Albani caffe-hause in Rome, circa 1880, from the Jack and Beverly Wilgus collection

Archives of Women of the Southwest curator Samantha Dodd spoke at the 24th Annual Legacies Dallas History Conference. The theme of the event was “Dallas Legends: Fact and Fiction” and Samantha discussed Louise Raggio. Known as the “Mother of Family Law in Texas” Raggio was the first female prosecutor in Dallas County, and led efforts to establish the Marital Property Act of 1967, which gave each spouse control over community property. Click here to learn more about the Louise Raggio papers.

An image from the Prints and Photographs department was shared with the newly established Mexican American Museum of Texas, ahead of their upcoming exhibit on Mexican Americans at the Alamo. The image, featured here, is of Alamo survivor Madam Candelaria, and describes her as 113 years old. The exhibit will open later this spring at the Fair Park Hall of State.

Do you need inspiration for next years holiday cards? Then check our latest blog post, Christmas Greetings, for a look at the cards sent by Ebby and her husband, Maurice Acers. The cards highlight the couple’s shared sense of humor, as well as their love of Dallas and the Lone Star State, and commitment to the charitable causes they supported. Click here to read the post.

Images from the Prints and Photographs department were shared with the Latino Arts Project and the Owen Arts Center for their new exhibit, Yanga Rediscovered: The First Liberator of the Americas. The exhibit runs from February 1st through March 31st, and is free to the public.

Click here to learn more.

Collection Highlight

The Ronald L. Davis Oral History Collection is now online! Ronald L. Davis (1933-2022) was a professor of history at SMU and created the department’s oral history program. The program began in 1972 with the goal of collecting interviews with figures in the performing arts, from vaudeville and burlesque to opera and ballet to film and television, along with theater, music, radio, and opera. Highlights include interviews with James Earl Jones, King Vidor, and Gregory Peck. Click here to explore the collection.

New Accession

DeGolyer library recently accessioned a manuscript collection from novelist, short story writer, and journalist Bob Shacochis. Shacochis attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and has written for GQ as their cooking columnist, Outside magazine, and Harper’s. His first collection of short stories, Easy in the Islands, won a National Book Award. This collection contains the manuscript The Next New World, published in 1988. Click here to learn more.

Recently Digitized

48 folders of correspondence from the Holloway Family Papers were added to the digital library last month. The letters, dating from 1839 to 1903, include letters to and from Eliza Thornton Holloway and her family. The Holloway family’s interests were extensive, and their letters have been the subject of frequent inquiries from researchers all over the country. Yet due to their fragile nature, they were difficult to access. The growing digital Holloway collection both makes the collection available to researchers who can’t travel to Dallas, and helps preserve the papers by reducing wear and tear on the fragile items. Click here to view the finding aid.