SMU Libraries Digital Collections Update: March 2025

In March 2025, SMU Libraries uploaded 322 items into SMU Libraries Digital Collections. Highlights include:

18 programs, 1976-2007, from SMU’s annual literary festival were added to the SMU Campus Memories digital collection. These programs list a schedule of events and have short biographies of the many significant poets, novelists, and other literary figures who visited SMU for the festival.

29 course catalogs and course catalog sections from academic years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 were added to the SMU Course Catalogs digital collection.

1 photograph of Dallas Hall, 1915, taken on the SMU campus shortly after the building’s construction, was added to the SMU Campus Memories digital collection.

4 oral history interviews were added to the SMU Oral History Projects collection. These interviews, with Fernando Berwig Silva, Peace Enoch, Jordan Thomas, and Joclyn Ventura, are part of the Voices of SMU project.

93 film negatives, ca. 1930s, from the Robert Yarnall Richie Photograph Collection. Highlights include a series of four imagess of people at the Westchester Country Club and three images of products from Beetleware, a plastic dishware brand popular in the first half of the 20^th century.

9 historic Texas cookbooks, 1900-1960, comprising 1,603 pages, were added to the DeGolyer Library Cookbook Collection, including a cookbook of Christmas recipes published by the San Antonio Public Services Company and a cookbook published by the Blue Bird Circle to raise funds for those in need. 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).

49 negatives, ca. 1955-1956, from the Richard Steinheimer Photograph Collection. Subjects include a Kendall Copper Corp. train leaving Bingham Canyon and a Southern Pacific train crossing Stenner Creek Bridge.

29 photographs and documents, ca. 1914, from the Elmer and Diane Powell Collection on Mexico and the Mexican Revolution  The items include scenes of the 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz, including views of U.S. troops embarking and disembarking in Veracruz, funeral parades for the fallen, portraits of important people, U.S. troops in street fortifications and preparations for urban warfare, prisoners being freed by the U.S. forces, and various scenes around Veracruz.

3 manuscripts, 1884, from the Eastland, Texas debating society: the society’s constitution and bylaws, meeting minutes from 1884, and a partial sheet of paper containing a resolution on women’s suffrage.

1 broadside, 1846, entitled “To the voters of the Second Congressional District,” purportedly written by “Many voters” in regard to Timothy Pilsbury’s positive leanings toward slavery.

80 newspapers, 1850-1857, from Historic Newspapers at Bridwell Library. The Texas Wesleyan Banner, later known as the Texas Christian Advocate, was a weekly newspaper published by the Methodist Episcopal Church that distributed news related to the Methodist Church in Texas. These newspapers were digitized by Texas Tech University using Bridwell Library’s copies on microfilm.

1 pamphlet, 1881, entitled “Texas, the best land for the emigrant,” which promotes Texas as a premier destination for immigration.

1 pamphlet, 1883, Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railways’ “Texas Midland: The cattle route of Texas,” promoting the importance of Texas to the livestock trade.

1 broadside, 1866, entitled “Galveston as a Railway Centre!” by Albert Miller Lea, promoting the importance of Galveston, Texas, as a point along East-West railroad routes.