January’s finding aids By Paul Fisher, Assistant Director and Processing Archivist
Baylor students at a Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for Foreign Missions event, part of Missions Week in 1956. You’ll find this item in the BU Records: Baptist Student Union, Accession #BU/15, box 10, folder 18, at The Texas Collection, Baylor University.
BU Records: Baptist Student Union (#BU/15): Correspondence, financial records, literary productions, organizational records, and photographs of the ministries and events put on the by organization between 1930-1960.
BU Records: Alpha Lambda Delta (#BU/189): Contains chapter materials from 1955-1973, which includes literary productions, correspondence, and financial documents.
BU Records: Beall Poetry Festival (#BU/349): Promotional materials, such as tickets, brochures, and pamphlets from the poetry festival hosted by Baylor University. The Beall Poetry Festival, an annual poetry festival established in 1994, is still held every spring at Baylor University. You can read about this year’s upcoming Beall Poetry Festival here.
BU Records: Delta Sigma Pi (#BU/339): Includes administrative records, membership lists, minutes, photographs, booklets, and newspaper clippings pertaining to the Beta Iota chapter of Delta Sigma Pi at Baylor University. Dates range from 1930 to 1994.
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!Continue Reading
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!Continue Reading
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!
November’s finding aids By Paul Fisher, Processing Archivist
Texas Sheet Music collection, 1836-1979, undated (#258): An assortment of songs and sheet music relating to Texas. Many of these songs pertain to the Texas War of Independence, famous military leaders, Christmas in Texas, the state flower, the state song, the city of Waco, and life in the American Southwest.
These departmental pamphlets found in the collection highlight the variety of opportunities available at Baylor and historical changes in higher education for home economics as a whole You’ll find these items in the BU Records: Home Economics Department (#BU/107) at The Texas Collection, Baylor University. Rights: Some rights reserved. E-mail txcoll@baylor.edu for information about the use of our images. Visit www.baylor.edu/lib/texas/ for more information about our collections.
Clyde and Mae Porter collection, 1837-1957, undated (#16): Original manuscripts by the Porters concerning the history of German immigrants who moved to southern Texas in the middle of the 1800s. The Porters focused their efforts on the history of the Dresel, Spiess, and Soergel families.
November’s print materials By Amie Oliver, Librarian and Curator of Print Materials
Harding, Glenn T. Rails to the Rio. [Raymondville, TX]: [Glenn Harding], [2003]. Print.
Highlighting the 2004 centennial of the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railroad, this volume also provides information on towns created and/or affected by rail construction. Click here to view in BearCat.
Collias, Joe G. The Texas & Pacific Railway: Super-Power to Streamliners, 1925-1975. Crestwood, MO: M M Books, [1989]. Print.
This volume provides a deeper look at 50 years of the Texas & Pacific Railway and is filled with many photographs of trains, depots, and rail yards. Click here to view in BearCat.
This piece by former Texas Collection director Kent Keeth originally was published in The Baylor Line in September 1979, 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.
With Homecoming in full swing this weekend, it is the perfect time to take a moment and look back at how it all started. Baylor was one of the first schools to organize a Homecoming event for alumni over a century ago, and today it is one of the most widely celebrated Baylor traditions.
Invitation to the first Homecoming in 1909
In 1909, when Baylor held its first Homecoming, a pattern was set which holds remarkably true even today. Though seven decades have passed, and generations of alumni have come and gone, the traditional highlights and festivities of Baylor’s annual “family reunion” have retained a remarkable likeness to those of their distant prototype.
The purpose of the original Homecoming in 1909 was “to give an opportunity for the joyful meeting of former student friends, an occasion when old classmates could again feel the warm hand-clasp of their fellows, recall old memories and associations, and catch the Baylor spirit again.” To this end members of student organizations, local alumni and representatives of each graduation class launched a campaign of correspondence and advertisements in major state newspapers, inviting all former Baylor students to spend Thanksgiving at the Homecoming celebration.
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.
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!
June’s finding aids By Paul Fisher, Processing Archivist
This document provides a fascinating glimpse into what Baylor students and staff ate in the 1930s. Along with such familiar foods today as macaroni and cheese and baked potatoes, students ate stuffed eggs and steak garnished with crab apple.
Nate Chodorow papers, 1931-1986, undated (#726): Documents the daily operations of one of Waco’s longest running retail businesses. Operating for more than sixty years in downtown Waco, Nate Chodorow’s Dry Goods Store provided local consumers with apparel and piece goods as well as a variety of other household goods. The correspondence, the legal and financial records, and the print materials in this collection document the history of the store as well as Chodorow’s extensive real estate transactions.
June’s print materials By Amie Oliver, Librarian and Curator of Print Materials
Coahuila and Texas (Mexico). [Decree of the Standing Deputation of Congress … Saying that the Present Governor, Vidaurri y Villaseñor, is Removed from Office because of His Infirmities and the Office Entrusted to Juan José Elguezabal … ]. [Monclova, 1834].
One of four copies located in the world, this rare broadside, another Streeter item, provides information on the replacement of a Coahuila and Texas governor in 1834. Click here to view the Bearcat record for this resource!
Great Britain. Bill for Carrying into Effect the Treaty Between Her Majesty and the Republic of Texas for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade. [London], 1843.
This rare item, found in Streeter’s Bibliography of Texas, 1795-1845, is located in three other institutions and is the only copy located in Texas. The treaty, one of three between Texas and Great Britain signed in November 1840, deals with the suppression of the African slave trade. Click here to view the Bearcat record for this resource!
Luling Chamber of Commerce. Luling: Come to Luling Where Nature is Exceptionally Generous. [Luling, TX, 193-?].
“Texas wants you and Luling is the place to locate.” Highlighting the best 1930s Luling has to offer as a way to entice people to move there, this promotional pamphlet provides an interesting view of this small town. Contained within are photos and information on the oil industry, agriculture, recreational facilities, schools, churches, and more. Click here to view the Bearcat record for this resource!
Basketball film before: The Texas Collection receives athletics films in canisters of all shapes and sizes! Photo by Texas Collection staff.
This summer, The Texas Collection was fortunate to have four graduate students working with our staff and in our collections. As the summer comes to a close, we asked them to share a little about their projects and what they have learned. We’ll hear from two today, and two next month. This week’s post demonstrates the wide variety of materials we house at The Texas Collection, from the papers of Baptist theologians and missionaries to Baylor basketball film!
My name is Alyssa Gerhardt, and I am a fourth year history PhD student from Sutter, Illinois. I have been working at The Texas Collection for the summer, helping to process materials in the Baylor University Libraries Athletics Archive. [Alyssa’s work was funded by the Baylor University Libraries Athletics Archive endowment.] While it is common knowledge that Baylor University has gained a lot of national attention for its athletic teams in the past few years, it may come as a surprise to learn that The Texas Collection serves as the repository for materials documenting Baylor sports history. Although The Texas Collection holds a wide variety of Baylor sports material, my main job this summer was to process film from the men’s basketball team. Dating as far back as 1960, most of this film was in 16mm format and was in a range of conditions. It has been my job to identify all of these films, put them into archival-grade containers, and catalog them for future patrons’ use.
Basketball film after: Processing film meant putting them into uniform archival canisters and adding clearly-marked labels. Photo by Texas Collection staff.
Today, we take the process of watching movies or film for granted, but this project has helped me gain an appreciation for the development of both film and film technology over the last fifty years. Because I was working with film reels that had not been properly stored for many years, they were too delicate to simply put on a projector and watch. Instead, using a homemade film reel holder and a handheld microscope, I worked frame-by-frame to pick out players, uniforms, scores, or anything else that would help with identification. Then, using that information, I used sports reports from the Baylor Lariat, team photos from the Round-Up, or game statistics from an athletic department almanac. Needless to say, this could sometimes be very tedious work!
As an avid Baylor sports fan, however, I found the process fascinating. It was interesting to learn about key basketball players throughout the program’s history and feel connected to a long tradition of school pride. It was also intriguing to see how the sport of basketball has changed over the years, something I had not previously given much thought to.
Working at the Texas Collection has given me new appreciation for the range of materials that archives preserve and gave me a glimpse into the many fun and surprising sources we have for learning about the history of Baylor University.
~
William Mueller attended a number of the Baptist World Congresses in the mid-twentieth century, including this one in London in 1955. With fluency in more than five languages, he often served as one of the primary interpreters. William A. Mueller papers #3959, box 1, folder 3.
My name is Cody Strecker, and I am a doctoral student of early Christian theology in Baylor’s Religion Department. The most interesting, and most daunting, of my tasks this summer as the Baptist Collection intern has been preparing the William A. Mueller papers. This German-American’s life spanned the majority of the twentieth century. His work as a young interpreter in post-World War I French-occupied Rhineland, as a Brooklyn pastor of a bilingual German congregation, as a student of Reinhold Niebuhr at Union Theological Seminary, and as a professor of history, theology, and philosophy at half a dozen Baptist seminaries and American universities, brought him into contact with a great host of fascinating events and figures. He is, in short, a historian’s dream—not only because of his encounters and activities, but because he took notes on what he read and heard with what appears to have been an obsessive compulsion. And his hundreds of lovely, flowing letters reveal a gregarious man of great faith and good humor. If you desire a lucid summary of Kierkegaard’s thought or a list of the most brutal one-liners uttered by the inimitable Archie Bunker in 1976, look no further.
After disagreements between the president and faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary resulted in the dismissal of 12 professors in 1958, a report was submitted to the American Association of Theological Schools. Mueller, who was on the faculty at the time and had written the history of the seminary, left little question of his feelings on the matter when he titled his copy of the report “South[ern] Seminary Debacle 1958.” William A. Mueller papers #3959, box 8, folder 9.But this historian’s dream was an archives processor’s nightmare. Although the collection’s folder titles proved that there had been a system of organization, somewhere along the line someone had taken a diesel leaf-blower to the material remnants of Dr. Mueller’s mind. Four weeks of pulling rusted staples, deciphering shaky German handwriting, and reuniting long-lost pages has resulted in twelve boxes of neatly ordered documents, summarily described. Few tasks in my professional life have been for me more satisfying. I look forward to seeing the products of such an active and thoughtful man mined for greater insight into the complex history of modern German theology, or of Baptist higher education in twentieth century America.
Each month, we post a processing update to notify our readers about the latest collections that have finding aids online and are primed for research. Here are December’s finding aids:
Letter from Onnie Clem Jr. to “Julie” Cecile L. Julian Clem during Onnie’s 1945 public relations tour in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. They would marry seven months later. Onnie Clem Jr. papers #3939, box 1, folder 3.
Grant and Donell Teaff Baylor Football collection, 1948-2006, undated (#3835): Contains correspondence, football programs, newspaper clippings, and audiovisual materials relating to Teaff’s career as head football coach at Baylor University. As usual, the materials described in the finding aid can be seen at The Texas Collection, but many of them also have been digitized as part of the Baylor University Libraries Athletics Archive in collaboration with the Electronic Library. Check out game films, ribbons, and more in the online collection!
Onnie Clem Jr. papers, 1944-1948 (#3939): Letters between Marine Corps members Onnie Clem Jr. and “Julie” Cecile L. Julian Clem during World War II. Also included is a transcribed interview with Onnie Clem Jr. about his experience during the Bataan Death March and as a prisoner of war for two and half years.
Tax receipt from 1850 for John Herpin’s land claims in Liberty County, Texas. A dispute about ownership of this land was still going on in 1910, according to the collection. John B. Herpin papers #1636, box 1, folder 2.
As the anticipation of the first Homecoming in the new McLane Stadium builds, be sure to visit the Texas Collection in the Carroll Library and check out the new exhibit on Lee Carroll Field: Early Athletic Traditions at Baylor University…where Baylor football began!
Photograph by Fred Gildersleeve of Lee Carroll Field, Baylor University, circa 1933
![Harding, Glenn T. Rails to the Rio. [Raymondville, TX]: [Glenn Harding], [2003]. Print.](https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4554/37945624935_fc6272a6ef_o.jpg)
![Collias, Joe G. The Texas & Pacific Railway: Super-Power to Streamliners, 1925-1975. Crestwood, MO: M M Books, [1989]. Print.](https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4527/37945625075_147a4a9c1c_o.jpg)
![Luling Chamber of Commerce. Luling: Come to Luling Where Nature is Exceptionally Generous. [Luling, TX, 193-?]](https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7465/27949305476_26eb20a6cf_o.jpg)
