SMU Libraries Digital Collections Update: June 2023

In June 2023, SMU Libraries uploaded and/or updated 301 items in SMU Libraries Digital Collections. Highlights include:

150 postcards, ca. 1905-1950,  from the John Miller Morris Real Photographic Postcards and Photographs of Texas collection. 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-252486-OLS-22). (2023). These photographs, which were taken throughout Texas, feature images from from Dallas, Eastland, Hamilton, Haskell, Hutchinson Johnson, Lampasas, Mills, Palo Pinto, Scurry, and Young Counties. Among the postcards are images of Franklin Roosevelt delivering a speech at the Cotton Bowl and Old Rip the Horned Frog. In addition, 22 postcards digitized outside of the TexTreasures grant were uploaded. These postcards depict the El Paso and Mexican border region, including 3 items related to the visit of President William Howard Taft to El Paso in 1909.

Metadata for 16 videos (July1971) in the WFAA Newsfilm Collection, ca. 1960-1978 has been updated and enhanced with annotations that were researched and written by staff at the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection. The annotations provide detailed descriptions of each shot based on time-code, making the newsfilms easy to search and retrieve, as well as providing information on the people, places, and events that are depicted.

9 real photographic post cards, 16 photographs and 1 scrapbook, ca. 1901-1961, from Texas Oil Production that document the development of the petroleum industry in Texas during the 20^th century. Towns and cities in Texas depicted include Electra, Coleman, Abilene, Amarillo, Bledsoe, Houston, Orange, Beaumont, and Port Arthur. Photographs showing development of the Continental Oil Building in Denver, Colorado are included. Many photographs show oil field gushers, workers with their families at work sites, gas stations, petroleum tank rail cars, and other petroleum and gasoline production and storage equipment. The scrapbook in this set contains floor plans, photographs of construction, and similar information related to the construction of the Tennessee Gas Building in Houston, Texas.

20 oral history transcript excerpts, 1970s, 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 Joan Fontaine, Henry Mancini, William Wyler, John Houseman, and Norman Lloyd. Several interviews are with founders of the Dallas Civic Opera Company, including Lawrence Kelly and Nicola Rescigno.

4 drawings, ca. 1901-1907, from the Collection of Baldwin Locomotive Works Records. These erecting card drawing were made for the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company and Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway Company.

50 postcards, ca. early 1900s, from the Collection of Early Postcards of Mexico. This batch features printed and real photographic postcards from several cities in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Subjects include individuals, bars and other buildings, and some international bridges between Mexico and Texas.

4 photographs from the Daryl Bane collection of Neiman-Marcus photographs, ca. 1920s-1930s and ca. 1950s. Subjects include a display on the sales floor, group photographs with Daryl Bane as a toddler, and a photo of Neiman Marcus staff.

2 interviews were added to the Southern Methodist University Oral History Interviews and Digital Humanities Student Projects collection. These interviews, with Andrea Corona and Stephanie Ikediobi are part of the Voices of SMU project.

6 diaries from Series 1: Sir Victor Sassoon Diaries, covering several years in the 1930s and 1940s.

“Windblown” by Henrich Kühn, 1911, a photogravure portrait of a woman and girl standing in a field. The image was included in volume 33 of “Camera Work” (1911).