SMU Digital Collections Update: May 2023

In May 2023, SMU Libraries uploaded and/or updated 446 items in SMU Libraries Digital Collections. Highlights include:

139 postcards, ca. 1905-1950,  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 throughout Texas, feature images from Coryell, Denton, Eastland, Erath, Hamilton, Hardeman, Hood, Johnson, Mills, Montague, Palo Pinto, Parker, Somervell, Tarrant, Wichita, Wilbarger, and Wise Counties. Examples include a music store filled with phonograph cylinders, a photo of the Mollie Bailey circus tent, and a churn powered by a waterwheel.

Metadata for 18 videos (June 1971) in the WFAA Newsfilm Collection, ca. 1960-1978 has been updated and enhanced with annotations that were researched and written by staff at the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection. The annotations provide detailed descriptions of each shot based on time-code, making the newsfilms easy to search and retrieve, as well as providing information on the people, places, and events that are depicted.

7 drawings, ca. 1894-1927, from the Collection of Baldwin Locomotive Works Records. These erecting card drawing were made for the Republic of Colombia, Huntington & Broad Top Mountain, Associated Lines (MC), Takata, and Booth Kelly Lumber.

6 incunabula, 1466-1493, from Fifteenth-Century Printed Books at Bridwell Library. Among these are a three-volume Latin Bible printed in Germany in 1480, a Latin Bible printed in Rome in 1471, and a German Bible printed in 1466.

29 real photographic post cards and 1 photograph, ca. 1904-1934, from Texas Oil Production, documenting the development of the petroleum industry in Texas during the first half of the 20^th century. Towns and areas in Texas depicted include Humble, Ranger, Denver City, and Goose Creek. Many of the photographs show spectacular oil field gushers that captivated the public’s interest and symbolized the booming industry. Other photographs show oil field workers, scenes from oil field towns, oil company employee lodging, and landscapes full of rigs, storage tanks, and other equipment.

76 photographs and ephemera depicting or relating to Venustiano Carranza from the Elmer and Diane Powell Collection on Mexico and the Mexican Revolution. Highlights include an image of Carranza and his family gathered on the back of a train car.

88 postcards, ca. 1902-1940s, from the Collection of Early Postcards of Mexico. This group of real photographic and printed postcards shows a variety of scenes and places in various Texas-Mexico border cities, towns and regions, including Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The postcards depict bars, cafes, and markets, as well as landmark bridges, churches and other buildings.

64 negatives and one color film transparency, October 18-19, 1961, from the Robert Yarnall Richie Photograph Collection. This series of 65 negatives shows the loading of Raymond International locomotives and railroad cars onto the Seatrain New York intermodal freight transport ship from Edgewater, NJ, for delivery to Liberia for use in the construction and operation of the Lamco Railway.

1 diary, 1839-1842. This manuscript diary of diplomat Ángel Calderón de la Barca describes his 1839 journey from New York to Havana, Cuba and Mexico. Calderón de la Barca (1790-1861) was a Spaniard born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and appointed Minister to Mexico in 1838, the same year he married Frances Erskine Inglis (1804-1882). He was Spain’s first ambassador to Mexico and also an early daguerreotypist practicing the art in Mexico 1840-1842. Calderón de la Barca and his wife left Mexico in January 1842.

4 interviews have been added to the Southern Methodist University Oral History Interviews and Digital Humanities Student Projects digital collection. These interviews, with Averie Bishop, Domnik Cobos, Dorthy Lukens, and Ali Morgan are part of the Voices of SMU project.

12 photographs, 4 program covers, and 1 report were added to the Southern Methodist University Campus Memories digital collection. Highlights include a portrait of Ruth Morgan, a long-time professor at SMU who served the university’s first female provost from 1986 to 1993, and the covers from 4 SMU football programs from 1949.

An issue of the SMU humor magazine Limbo, the ‘’Moscow Issue’’ from October 1950, was added to the Southern Methodist University Publications and Media Collection.