The Browning Letters

This is an unparalleled collection of correspondence written and received by the Victorian poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Featuring materials from the collection of the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University and the holdings of Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the letters in this collection are browsable and searchable by date, author, and first line of text. The project is funded in part by the Bob and Anna Wright Endowed Fund.

Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists

“These volumes present Southern Baptists in the context of their history, their present organization, and their maturing methodology. Eight hun­dred and ninety-nine writers contributed 4,349 articles, and a qualified editorial staff prepared the manuscript for publication. In it all a dedicated effort was made to provide Southern Baptists and all others who are inter­ested with the facts that are necessary to a genuine understanding of South­ern Baptists—their past, their present life, and their work.” (From the Preface, Volume One)

This collection contains all four volumes of the encyclopedia and is full text-searchable.

The Baylor University Round Up

The Baylor University Round Up has served as Baylor’s annual yearbook for more than a century. This collection contains digitized copies of the full run of extant Round Ups up to the year 1979.

Southern Baptist Annuals

In May of 1845, southern Baptists meeting in Augusta, Georgia, formed the Southern Baptist Convention and elected William B. Johnson of South Carolina as its first president. Meetings were held every two or three years until the 1870’s when the Convention became an annual gathering. From 1845 until 1897, reports of the meetings were called Proceedings. Beginning in 1898, the title changed to Southern Baptist Convention Annual. The publication records the business of the Convention, including at various times reports, statistics, sermons, state convention information, and lists of staff, trustees and committees. The minister list appearing at the end of various SBC Annuals is not available online until 40 years from its date of publication. This includes pastors, ministers of education, ministers of youth, associate ministers, mission pastors, ordained ministers, chaplains, evangelists, etc., but does not include entity staff lists, trustee lists, state convention lists, committee lists, or other such directories.

Waco City Directories

Waco City Directories from the collection in the Texas Collection have been digitized and are fully searchable.  This project covers those directories in the public domain, 1876-1923.

Baylor Lariats

Through a collaborative project including the Riley Digitization Center, the Texas Collection, and the Department of Student Publications, all issues of The Lariat (the student newspaper for Baylor University) will be available at this site — from 1900 to tomorrow’s edition.  Currently issues of The Lariat from 1900-to the early 1990s are available.  The complete full text of The Lariat can be searched through this interface.

War of the Rebellion Atlas

The American Civil War goes by many names. The War Between the States, the War of Northern Aggression, the War to Save the Union, the States’ Rights War, and the War of 1861 to 1865 have all been used to describe the conflict that rent the nation asunder. Following the publication in the 1880s and 1890s of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, it was given another: the War of the Rebellion.

When the War Department began to issue its 70 volume set of records generated by both the Union and Confederate Armies, it also created an Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, published in 1895. Its 175 plates contain more than 1,000 maps, illustrations, and diagrams detailing battlefield maps, scenes from the conflict, and military equipment.

The Texas Collection at Baylor University is proud to house a pristine copy of the Atlas, and in 2010 the Digitization Projects Group scanned the plates and placed them online in this collection. The maps are searchable by keywords, including military personnel, city, state, and geographic features.

Oral History

Since its founding in 1970, the Institute for Oral History has completed over 800 memoirs comprising more than 1,800 oral history interviews. The Institute has created transcripts of all interviews in the collection, and these transcripts are available to researchers and the public in PDF format.  This digital collection provides access to these oral histories.

In addition to the memoirs described in this Guide, there are more than 1,500 interviews undergoing transcribing and editing in the Institute for Oral History. Summaries of these memoirs will be added to the Guide as the interview transcripts are completed and deposited in the archives.

19th Century Women Poets Collection

This digital collection of books located in the Armstrong Browning Library features works created between the late 1700s and the 1910s.  The collection embraces a range of styles, from simple statements to effusive eulogies. Topics covered include religious themes, ancient Greek and Roman myth, daily life, romance, motherhood, and local and national history. Infant mortality, an ever-present specter in the lives of 19th century women, is a recurring theme addressed in almost every title in the collection.

The collection also features works from the Browning family’s personal collection. These books feature inscriptions addressed to Robert (the “Guild Master”), Elizabeth and their son Pen, and are among the most prized acquisitions of the Armstrong Browning Library.

Prominent authoresses whose works appear in the collection include Eliza Cook, George Eliot, Dora Greenwell, Felicia Hemans, Jean Ingelow, Caroline Norton, Christina Rossetti, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The full text of all of these works is fully searchable and the original volumes can be found in the Armstrong Browning Library.