SMU Libraries Digital Collections Update: August 2024

In August 2024, SMU Libraries uploaded or enhanced 270 items in SMU Libraries Digital Collections. Highlights include:

12 promotional brochures, 1925-1989, were added to the Southern Methodist University Campus Memories collection. These items, spanning the 1920s to the 1980s, feature facts about and images of SMU’s campus and student life.

20 oral history transcript excerpts, 1984-1985, 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. Many interviewees give detailed accounts of personal experience and reflections from their professional career. Highlights include excerpts from interviews with Mary Martin, Maxene Andrews, Ring Lardner, Jr., Joan Bennett, Gene Autry, and Lizabeth Scott.

6 interviews were added to the SMU Oral History and Digital Humanities Student Projects collection. These interviews, with Mitul Agrawal, Frank Chen, Brianna Flores, Jennifer Gomez, Sivani Kumar, and Briana Smith, are part of the Voices of SMU project.

23 historic Texas cookbooks, 1900-1969, comprising 1,571 pages, were added to the DeGolyer Library Cookbook Collection. These imprints include a holiday recipe cookbook from the staff of Baylor University Medical center; a cookbook focusing on peaches with a recipe attributed to Ladybird Johnson; and “The photo-method for party baking,” a booklet that has step by step pictures with instruction for several recipes for parties. 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‐256843‐OLS‐24).

67 photographs from the J.C. Penney Company records, 1902-2004. These images depict store openings, sales floors and displays, and exteriors of several JCPenney stores in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas.

101 items, ca. 1922-1950s, from the J. C. Penney Papers, circa 1800-2000. Subjects include gourds in hats and hand-colored photographs of both Penney Memorial Church and the homes in the Penney Retirement Community.

1 manuscript, The conquest of Mexico, second. part. Chap. 1 of King Montezuma’s chariot 1554. The manuscript consists of Gómara’s chapters LXXXIV to CCXXIV inclusive of the conquest of Mexico during the time of Montezuma. This manuscript is a later copy of the original, ca. 1800.

30 real photographic postcards, ca. 1914, from the Elmer and Diane Powell Collection on Mexico and the Mexican Revolution. The photographs show scenes from the 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz, in which the United States intervened in the Mexican Revolution following the Tampico Affair. Photographs show members of the U.S. Marines and Navy, Mexican officials and soldiers, members of the Red Cross, and members of the Mexican public in various scenes in and around the city of Veracruz. Included are shots of U.S. military encampments outside the city, street scenes showing ordinary life during the occupation, ships at sea, scenes from the Veracruz Naval School, and the surrender of General Alor.