SMU Libraries Digital Collections Update: February 2023

In February 2023, SMU Libraries uploaded 400 items into SMU Libraries Digital Collections. Highlights include:

208 images, ca. 1898-1950s, from the John Miller Morris Real Photographic Postcards and Photographs of Texas Collection. This project was made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and Texas State Library and Archives Commission (Grant Number LS-252486-OLS-22). (2023). These photographs, which were taken in the southeast and central regions of Texas, feature images of buildings, city streets, waterways, farms, and more. The towns depicted in these photographs include El Campo, Columbus, Port Arthur, Victoria, Goliad, and more.

5 interviews from the Southern Methodist University Oral History Interviews and Digital Humanities Student Projects collection. These interviews, with Teresa Acosta, Farina King, Lori Lizarraga, Shalini Nair, and Bri Tollie, are part of the Voices of SMU project.

20 oral history transcript excerpts, 1970s, from the Ronald L. Davis Oral History Collection. The interviewees are from all branches of the performing arts, but the emphasis is on motion pictures and popular music. Highlights include excerpts from interviews with Ann B. Davis; George Cukor; Mel Tormé; Red Buttons; and Mel Blanc.

71 real photographic postcards and photographs, ca. 1880-1939, from the Collection of Texas Photographs. These images contain street and bird’s eye views of streets, stores, construction projects, railroad buildings, and courthouses in Texas, as well as everyday scenes in Amarillo, Coppell, Dublin, Eddy, Farmersville, Honey Grove, Lampasas, Palestine, Mount Pleasant, Temple, Thurber, San Antonio, Waco, and Wharton.  Also included in this set are series of related images from a hunting and fishing trip taken during the 1930s and family photographs of homes and children.

2 diaries, 1932 and 1933, from Sir Ellice Victor Elias Sassoon Papers and Photographs. These diaries feature photographs, clippings, passenger lists for various sailings between Europe and China, and handwritten diary entries.

60 course catalogs and 1 program from the Southern Methodist University Course Catalogs collection. The catalogs document SMU’s class offerings for academic years 1950-1951, 1952-1953, 1953-1954, 1955-1956, 1957-1958 and 1958-1959. The program for the 1953 commencement is also included.

3 albums, ca. 1901-192, from the Edward Danforth Self Collection of Mexico Photographs. The images in these albums were taken by Edward Danforth Self, a mechanical and mining engineer who worked as a general manager of the San Carlos Mine in San Jose, Mexico. They feature images of San Jose Copper Company buildings and operations, Self’s home and family, Mexican Central Railroad trains, Mexican troops, sporting events and races, and other buildings in Mexico.

28 images, ca. 1910-1915, from the Elmer and Diane Powell Collection on Mexico and the Mexican Revolution. These items feature General Pascual Orozco, members of his staff, or soldiers under his command. Highlights include a pin-back button with a small portrait of Orozco and a postcard featuring a picture of Orozco and Chihuahua Governor Abraham González de Hermosillo y Casavantes taken after the revolutionary army entered the city.

37 videos, 1970s, are now annotated in the WFAA Newsfilm Collection. In additions to updates to 36 previously available items, the newsreel for April 29, 1971 is newly available in the digital collection.

1 booklet, 1897, titled T. Allen McQuary’s Romantic Ride Around the World for an Arkansaw Girl and $5,000. This booklet discusses the trip around the world undertaken by T. Allen McQuary in the pursuit of an Arkansas woman’s hand in marriage (and $5,000).