SMU Libraries Digital Collections Update: January 2025

In January 2025, SMU Libraries uploaded 308 items into SMU Libraries Digital Collections. Highlights include:

40 negatives, ca. 1955-1957, from the Richard Steinheimer Photograph Collection. Subjects include a trip to Arizona and aerial photographs of the Glendale and La Crescenta areas of Los Angeles County.

128 items, ca. 1850-1950s, from the Elmer and Diane Powell Collection on Mexico and the Mexican Revolution. The items include portraits and postcards, as well as scenes of the 1914 American occupation of Veracruz and the Decena Trágica, showing street fighting and Mexican civilian volunteers resisting the arrival of U.S. forces; scenes of and around San Juan de Ulua island; a commemorative pin for a U.S. soldier who died during the occupation; and U.S. forces seizing the Veracruz customs house.

11 historic Texas cookbooks, 1900-1969, comprising 1,364 pages, were added to the DeGolyer Library Cookbook Collection, including the Cook Book of Tried and True Recipes by the National Council of Jewish Women and a cookbook published by the Wayside Home Demonstration Club. 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).

7 postcards and photographs relating to the Texas State Fair and/or 1936 Centennial, including the Hall of Negro Life Centennial Exposition, birds-eye views of the Centennial exposition, and the State Fair Race Track in 1934.

35 manuscripts and documents, 1568-1840, comprising the Paul P. Steed, Jr. collection of Spanish America and Philippine Documents. The collection consists of correspondence, official documents, wills, petitions, edicts, dispatches, reports, expense records, ecclesiastical certificates, royal provisions, land grants, and other papers relating to the conquest and administration of Spanish America (Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru) and the Philippines.

58 course catalogs and SMU pamphlets, ca. 1917-1936, were added to the SMU Course Catalogs digital collection. Highlights include a pamphlet from the School of Engineering on engineering as a career and the SMU Athletic Associations’ handbook from 1928.

13 photographs, ca. 1929-1936, from the Isabel T. Kelly Ethnographic Archive, showing indigenous people from Utah and Mexico. Highlights include four photographs of a woman identified as Minnie Tom weaving on a loom.

13 stereographs, ca. 1900-1925, from Stereographs of Mexico, including scenes of the Iztaccíhuatl volcano, Aztec Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, the Cathedral of Mexico, Mexico City’s main square, and more.

3 card photographs, ca. 1872-1905, from Indians of the Oklahoma Territory, showing Kiowa tribe members playing monte, a Native American couple, and a Wichita grass house.