SMU Libraries Digital Collections Update: September 2024

In September 2024, SMU Libraries uploaded 345 items in SMU Libraries Digital Collections. Highlights include:

73 photographs and illustrations, ca. 1920s-1980s, from the J. C. Penney Company Records. Highlights include a series of photographs taken to show where the Kirksville, MO, store location was being expanded, including two images of the construction, and a photograph of the crowd gathered for a fashion show on the sales floor of a JCPenney in Springfield, MO.

123 items, ca. 1943-1983, by various creators, from the J. C. Penney Papers, ca. 1800-2000. Subjects include people using looms at Diebold Arts & Crafts Center and color photographs from Mary Cleary’s visit to the Penney Memorial Community on April 3, 1979.

58 manuscripts, 1748-1830, from the Collection of Wesleyana at Bridwell Library. These include letters and other documents written by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, along with letters written by his family members and correspondents, including Charles Wesley, Francis Asbury, and Ebenezer Blackwell. These documents are part of the World Methodist Museum Council collection, which Bridwell Library acquired in 2021. Other items in this extensive collection can be viewed in Bridwell’s ongoing exhibition, The World Methodist Museum Collections & The St. John’s Bible at Bridwell Library.

23 items (1 album and its 22 individual pages), ca. 1920-1925, from “Photographs, Colombia – Venezuela by E. B. Hopkins.” These images show scenes along rivers and on oil concessions, primarily in Colombia, but with some in Venezuela and Curaçao, taken by Edwin Butcher Hopkins during one or more trips to survey the area.

31 photographs, ca. 1870s-1930s, from the Collection of Texas People and Portraits. Subjects include a group of young men decorating their friend in flowers and two nurses sitting on the steps of Harris Hospital.

27 historic Texas cookbooks, 1900-1962, comprising 1,487 pages, were added to the DeGolyer Library Cookbook Collection. The imprints include Christmas Time at Home, showcasing Christmas recipes; Bewley’s Best Bakes Better: A Few Cooking Suggestions, devoted to baking; and Get Texsun for that Extra Touch of Texas in Your Meals: Favorite Citrus Recipes, highlighting grapefruit recipes. 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).

10 interviews were added to the SMU Oral History and Digital Humanities Student Projects digital collection. These interviews, with Ashish Doma, Terrie Fields, Odran Fitzgerald, Mauricio Galvan, Tiffany Jones, Kevin Nguyen, Riya Reddy, Atrion Sorrells, and Vedang Uniyal, are part of the Voices of SMU project to document the experiences of underrepresented SMU alumni.

20 oral history transcript excerpts, 1985-1987, 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 Tony Randall, John Saxon, Paul Henreid, Barbara Rush, and Tharon Musser.

14 real photographic postcards and 16 photographic prints, ca. 1908-1921, from the Elmer and Diane Powell Collection on Mexico and the Mexican Revolution. The photographs include scenes of the U.S. Atlantic fleet and battleships at the approximate time of the 1914 occupation of Veracruz. Also included are scenes from the occupation, such as photographs of soldiers and sailors boarding and disembarking ships, people and soldiers in Veracruz, a hospital train, and ships at sea.

West side Plaza,  ca. 1871-1873, by Henry T. Hiester, from the New Mexico Stereographs collection, depicting the west side of a town plaza, with horses standing near the fence and covered wagons in the background.

Ruins of the Old Pueblo Church, Taos Valley, New Mexico, ca. 1870s, a stereograph from Gurnsey’s Rocky Mountain Views, showing the ruins of a church in Taos Valley.

The Old Mill, 1936, a postcard from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection portraying the Old Mill Inn, which was built for the Texas Centennial Exposition.

[Women Carrying Lumber], 1918, from the World War I collection, a photograph depicting five women at a work site carrying lumber.