Articles from September 2017

Research Ready: September 2017

Adventure, American West, Archives, Books, Cowboys, Falls County Texas, Frontier and pioneer life, frontier and pioneer life, letters, Old West, Photographs, Printing, Race relations, rare books, Research Ready, Screenplays, W.R. White, Waco, Waco race relations, West
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Each month, we post an update to notify our readers about the latest archival collections to be processed and some highlights of our print material acquisitions. These resources are primed for research and are just a sampling of the many resources to be found at The Texas Collection!

September’s finding aids
By Paul Fisher, Processing Archivist

  • Santa Fe Railroad Route Map, undated
    Two historical markers now commemorate Long Branch Cemetery: one recounting the history of the cemetery and the other honoring a former slave named Sylvia King who is buried there. Long Branch is one of the oldest cemeteries in central Texas. You’ll find these items in the Long Branch Cemetery collection, 2009-2016, undated (#4020), box 1 OVZ, folder 4, at The Texas Collection, Baylor University.

     

  • September’s print materials
    By Amie Oliver, Librarian and Curator of Print MaterialsEllis, Edward Sylvester. Lightning Jo: The Terror of the Santa Fe Trail. New York: Beadle and Adams, [1874]. Print.Ellis, Edward Sylvester. Lightning Jo: The Terror of the Santa Fe Trail. New York: Beadle and Adams, [1874]. Print. 

    Part of the Beadle Pocket Novels series, Lightning Jo is the adventure story of a scout leading a party through treacherous Comanche country. Click here to view in BearCat.

     

    Lafrentz, F. W. Cowboy Stuff: Poems. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927. Print.

     

     

     

     

    Lafrentz, F. W. Cowboy Stuff: Poems. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927. Print. 

    Number 98 of 500 copies produced, this special edition volume of Cowboy Stuff, complete with handmade laid paper, is signed by the author, Illustrator, and publisher. Each poem, written by F. W. Lafrentz, who, at 14-years-old immigrated to the U.S. from Germany, has an accompanying etching by Henry Ziegler, noted British artist. Click here to view in BearCat.

Introducing Rachel DeShong and Leanna Barcelona

A Day in the (Texas Collection) Life
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Rachel DeShong, Special Event Coordinator and Map Curator and Leanna Barcelona, University Archivist

Equally as important as the materials themselves are those responsible for creating access and caring for the materials within the library and archives. The Texas Collection is pleased to welcome two new members to our staff and faculty at Baylor University.

Rachel DeShong is the new Special Event Coordinator and Map Curator. She is originally from California and earned her Master’s degree in Museum Studies from Baylor University. She previously worked at The Texas Collection as a graduate assistant. Rachel was the Collections Manager for Meeteetse Museums in Meeteetse, Wyoming and the Curator of Collections for Historic Waco Foundation in Waco prior to coming back to The Texas Collection. In her new role, Rachel will work with our extensive map collection and coordinate the Heart of Texas Regional History Fair (HOTRHF). “I am excited to work with such an amazing collection and to coordinate an important event like the history fair.”

Leanna Barcelona is the new University Archivist. She is originally from the Chicago suburbs and earned her Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Leanna works with materials and records related to Baylor within the University Archives at The Texas Collection. “I enjoy working in academic archives because university campuses are hubs of history and reflect a larger national narrative, and the documents generated as a result of this can help researchers in several capacities.”

From Page to Air: Sharing Baylor Football since 1951

Baylor athletics, Baylor football, Baylor University
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by Sylvia Hernandez, BULAA Project Archivist

Cover of the 1951 Baylor Football Data guide.
Cover of the 1951 Baylor Football Data guide.

As football season gets underway, we find ourselves in the stands of our favorite stadium watching the game, hoping the best for our team. But what about the times you can’t make it? Have you ever listened on the radio or watched the television broadcast? Where do they get those stories? How do they know those stats? How do you say that name?

Media guides have all the answers. Most of them.

While processing a large collection of Baylor Athletics materials, a “Baylor University Football Data” guide from 1951 was found, one of the earliest in the collection. It features several players on the cover, season schedule, coach and player bio’s, school record holders, and yes, even a key for “those hard-to-say names.” These guides were, and still are, made available by the Athletic Department to sports editors, radio/television announcers, and several others who may be covering the game in some capacity.

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Texas over Time: Camp MacArthur

Camp MacArthur, Historic Waco, military history, Photographs, Texas, Texas military hospitals, Waco, World War I
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Texas has changed quite a bit over the years, as is readily seen in our vast photograph and postcard collections. To help bring some of those changes to life, we’ve created a “Texas over Time” series of GIFs that will illustrate the construction and renovations of buildings, changing aerial views, and more. Our collections are especially strong on Waco and Baylor images, but look for some views beyond the Heart of Texas, too.

• Named after Lt. Gen. Arthur MacArthur, the camp was opened July 18th, 1917, to train men demobilized from service on the Mexican border at the end of World War I. It was in service for less than three years when it was abandoned on May 15, 1919.
• As well as a demobilization facility, Camp MacArthur served as an officer’s training school and an infantry replacement training camp.
• Located in northwest Waco, local businessmen helped to create a 10,700-acre complex from cotton fields and blackland farms.
• The estimated cost was five million dollars and included a base hospital, administration offices, tent housing for troops, and other military personnel buildings.
• The first commander was Major General James Parker who formed the 32nd U.S. Infantry Division later known as “Les Terribles” for their “successful, tenacious attacks” on enemy troops in Langres, France.
• The camp’s capacity could occupy over 45,000 troops but never exceeded 28,000 troops at a time.
• After the establishment of Camp MacArthur, the large influx of soldiers helped stimulate Waco’s economy until the Great Depression. The military presence also heavily influenced Waco’s Cotton Palace Exposition with an exhibit of a “bullet-ridden German biplane.”

Works Cited
• Kelley, Dayton. “Camp MacArthur.” The Handbook of Waco and McLennan County, Texas. Waco, TX: Texian, 1972. 47. Print.
• Amanda Sawyer, “Camp MacArthur,” Waco History, accessed July 6, 2016, http://wacohistory.org/items/show/48.
• Stanton, John. “Camp MacArthur.” FortWiki. MediaWiki, 7 Feb. 2015. Web. 07 July 2016.
• Handbook of Texas Online, Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl, “Camp MacArthur,” accessed July 07, 2016, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qcc27.

See the still images in our Flickr set.

Looking Back at Baylor: The Origin of the Green and Gold

Baylor University, Baylor Yell Leaders, Looking Back at Baylor
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This piece by former Texas Collection director Kent Keeth originally was published in The Baylor Line in June 1978, then was reprinted in Looking Back at Baylor (1985), a collection of Keeth and Harry Marsh’s historical columns for the Line. Blogging about Texas periodically features selections from Looking Back at Baylor, with hopes of sharing Keeth’s work with a new audience.

Baylor Yell Leaders help cheer the Bears to their 1974 SWC Championship
Baylor Yell Leaders help cheer the Bears to their 1974 SWC Championship, while sporting the Baylor green and gold proudly!

Across campus, across Texas, and even across the country, Baylor fans have sported green and gold for over a century. But did you know, it all started with a dandelion? Kent Keeth, with the help of Baylor alumnae Sara Rose Kendall Irvine, recount how Baylor’s colors came to be:

Generations of Baylorites have pledged their loyalty to the Green and Gold, and some have gone so far as to incorporate the colors into their private lives as a motif for their automobiles, their sportswear or their living rooms. Many have probably speculated idly, at one time or another, about their significance and the reason for their adoption as the university’s official colors.

In a letter written in 1959 to Professor Guy B. Harrison of The Texas Collection, Mrs. Sara Rose Kendall Irvine (’02) of Waco offered a first-hand account of their selection and of the inspiration for the choice. A portion of Mrs. Irvine’s letter, slightly edited, appears below.

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