Summer in Miami…Texas
You can spend your summer traveling to Paris (Texas), or Italy (Texas). But why not instead take a trip to Miami (Texas)? Miami, the county seat of Roberts County, is on U.S. Highway 60 between Canadian and Pampa in the southeastern part of the county.
This photograph and scrap album, kept by Ruth Chisum of Miami, Texas, records the organized outdoor activities of the XX Club of Miami 1922-1923. More than 400 photographs, clipped images, and news clippings are mounted on these album pages. Portrait images of 15 members of the club form the title “XX Club”.
We do not know much about this women’s social organization. My co-workers and I speculate that the XX Club could have been named for the XX chromosome, XX as in kisses or XX meaning 20 in roman numerals. One of the joys and frustrations about archives is that sometimes we just can’t find out everything we want to know about a collection!
Most of the images are uncaptioned, but still manage to narrate the activities of a Texas Panhandle “cowgirl” club in the 1920s. These images record the social club on various outings with many pictures of members in western garb, horseback riding, playing with dogs, hiking, hill climbing, motoring, swimming, and general horsing around the Texas countryside.
Not a bad way to spend the summer months.
Contact Samantha Dodd, curator of the Archives of Women of the Southwest for additional information or assistance with accessing these materials. For more information and access to photograph collections, contact our Curator of Photographs Anne E. Peterson. The DeGolyer continues to expand our digitization efforts, adding new content weekly. We have thousands of items digitized and searchable in our digital collections with many thousands more to come!