Archives – Page 7 – The Texas Collection

The Life and Times: Diaries As Research Tools

Posted on June 6, 2012

Worrying about the health of family members? Fretting over school and work? If you are, you may write about these concerns in a diary. People have kept diaries, and have written about the same kinds of subjects, for a long time. Diaries are special that way—they are records of daily life. For researchers, they contain a wealth of information about a person, their activities, social interactions, community and private affairs.

So when we began working with the Baines Family Collection, we were pleased to find—in addition to correspondence and literary materials—a bevy of diaries. 47, to be exact.

George Washington Baines Jr. was the son of George Washington Baines, Sr., Baylor University’s third president (1861-63) and great grandfather to Lyndon Baines Johnson. George Jr. was born in Louisiana in 1848, and soon moved to Texas and attended Baylor University in Independence, Texas, where he graduated in 1875.

He became a fourth-generation Baptist minister and served at several churches in Texas. Baines was also a missionary to El Paso, establishing the First Baptist Church in El Paso, was Dean of the Bible Department at the San Marcos Baptist Academy, and was on the Baptist Education Commission of Texas.

Baines’ diaries span 1861-1912, but not consecutively. They contain small diaries and notebooks—some no bigger than a deck of cards—full of entries, pastor notes, sermons, diaries of churches where he preached, and places he visited.

For example, Baines’ 1890 diary, the marbled one on the top row of the photo below, contains a wealth of information, from Baines’ life to insight into the times. The beginning of this diary contains information similar to what we find in day planners today, but with some twists: a calendar, train time tables, interest tables, pages with the value of foreign coins, dates for eclipses, wind direction and velocity signals, and territorial statistics.

Later entries recount daily thoughts and activities. In the 1890 diary, Baines expresses concern about his schoolwork at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky:

Was examined in Homiletics today. Sat from 9am to 5:30pm. Ate no dinner. Hard work, and it came near to flooring me. Tonight I feel nervous. Head feels like a balloon. I can’t stand much of this. Fear my paper will be a poor one.

Another entry from the same diary reads:

At home all day. Janet had high fever this afternoon. We feel quite anxious about her. William is about well, so is George. But Janet’s condition is very serious.

Both of these entries could be seen in a modern seminary student’s diary! However, the collection also contains diaries dedicated to specific events. The “journal of a buffalo hunt in December, 1871,” for example, might be quite interesting indeed.

Though sometimes hard to read (old-fashioned handwriting trips up everybody), diaries and journals help us understand the lives and circumstances of people in other times, and valuable information on that day and age. Diaries can inform, inspire and delight. They can contain affirmation, negativity, and anything imaginable. As research tools they are very valuable. Come see us at The Texas Collection to research or if you just have an interest in diaries. We will be more than happy to show you our treasures.

Photos by Ann Payne

Preserving Historical Humor: The Society of Southwest Archivists Records

Posted on May 21, 2012

“When in doubt, throw it out.” No, this is not the motto of The Texas Collection, but it was the slogan of a spoof newsletter for the Society of Southwest Archivists. Other jokes in the newsletter, called “The Missed Archivist,” describe a new collection called the Militant Blatherhood of Impenitent Ignorance, which purportedly contained baptism, confirmation, and inquisition records, as well as 163 barrels of blood. (That would be a preservation problem!) The Society obviously knew how to enjoy a joke while going about their more serious work of educating their members.

The Society of Southwest Archivists, or SSA, is a professional organization for archivists in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. SSA was formed to promote best practices in the archival profession, educate members, and work with other groups on preserving historical manuscripts of interest. Currently, the association serves more than five hundred archivists, special collections librarians, preservationists, conservators, records managers, and others interested in the preservation of our documentary heritage.

Photo of SSA members — SSA Annual Meeting 1988 at the University of Texas at Arlington. From left to right: Jenkins Garrett (an important UTA Special Collections benefactor), Don W. Wilson, Charles B. Lowry, Virginia Garrett (Jenkins' wife, also a major UTA donor), and Donn C. Neal.

A group of interested information professionals formed the Society, wrote a constitution, and elected officers in May 1972. One year later, in 1973, SSA held its first annual meeting in Norman, Oklahoma, starting a tradition of holding an annual meeting in a different city each year. Governed by a president and other officers meeting as the Executive Board, the society added various committees over time to choose annual meeting sites, create programs for the meeting, produce a newsletter, and organize various other group functions. The society has also developed several awards and scholarships that have been awarded to members and non-members through the years.

We have about 21 linear feet worth of Society of Southwest Archivists records here at The Texas Collection. Retired Texas Collection archivist Ellen Kuniyuki Brown was a founding SSA member and helped bring the collection to Baylor. The collection preserves the history of the society, including a wide variety of materials from annual meetings, various committees, and early presidents.

The association has long enjoyed writing humorous articles and reading them at annual meetings. Every year someone would write a tongue-in-cheek article thanking the city and committee that hosted the last annual meeting. In 1983 the society was in Galveston for their meeting, and they thanked the chairman of the host committee by writing:

She [the Committee Chairman] has received…us on the pure, clean waters of pristine and sparkling Galveston Bay, has given us intensive care at the University of Texas hospital, has stranded us on the city’s celebrated waterfront, and has galvanized us into exploring the mysteries of the city’s geography, from P and a half street to Q and a quarter.

In 1986 the society thanked the host committee chairman by claiming that “she entertained us with an extravaganza called ‘Archivists on Ice’ celebrating the theme of hiring freezes,” and in 1990 the society was impressed with the city of Austin, Texas, which is “the only location in the Universe where the supposed nightly emergence of 700,000 flying, furry, friendly rodents could be considered a tourist attraction.”

SSA-CIMA meeting program, 1991 — The 2012 meeting isn't the first time SSA has teamed up with CIMA, as seen in this 1991 Annual Meeting program.

While reflecting the Society’s important work of facilitating archival research, education, and best practices, the Society of Southwest Archivists Records also document the camaraderie and fun to be had when archivists gather. SSA is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this week at its Annual Meeting, a joint gathering with the Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists, in Mesa, Arizona. What happens in Arizona, stays in Arizona…unless it goes into the archives, that is!

P.S. to you SSA members—if you’ve been active in SSA and have records from any leadership positions, committee service, etc., should they be in the SSA archives? We especially need post-1995 records. Check out the finding aid and if you have something we don’t (but should), let us know!

By Paul Fisher, Processing Archivist

Introducing Research Ready

Posted on May 15, 2012

Processing archival collections is one of our central activities at The Texas Collection. In archivist lingo, “processing” means to enhance access to our records through arrangement and description. Archives are different from books—they usually don’t have a title page, table of contents, or an index to tell you about the contents. And they’re often messy.

enfranchisement document — The Fred Bell papers: An 1867 enfranchisement oath.

Sometimes collections come to us in good order, with everything beautifully organized. However, it’s probably more common that we receive records that appear to have been boxed up with no particular order. In these cases, it’s our job to discern and implement an organizing principle, then to describe the arrangement and the records in what we call a finding aid. That way researchers have a good idea of what they might expect to find in an archives and can plan their projects accordingly.

The Texas Collection’s finding aids are posted on our website by subject and alphabetically. We’re in the process of upgrading our arrangement and description procedures to comply with Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), and we’re working with catalogers at Baylor’s Moody Library to get our finding aids into BearCat (Baylor’s central catalog) too.

All this to say, we want you to know about our most recently processed collections! So we’re adding “Research Ready” as a monthly feature of “Blogging about Texas.” Each month, we will post a processing update to notify our readers about the latest collections that have finding aids online and are primed for research. Here’s the scoop for May:

Olga Fallen Papers: The Olga Fallen Collection contains material accumulated during her years at Baylor University as women’s athletic coordinator, basketball and softball coach, and professor. The items include correspondence, financial, photographic, and organizational material. The bulk of the collection relates to basketball. (See our blog post for more detail.)
The James Warren Smith Sr. papers provide insight into the Texas Rangers' activities along the Mexican border in the early 1900s.
James Warren Smith Sr. Papers: The James Warren Smith Sr. Papers consist of a diary, scrapbooks, and literary productions. The scrapbooks contain many photographs. Smith was a Texas Ranger in the early 1900s.

Fred Bell Papers: The Fred Bell Papers consist of one manuscript, an enfranchisement oath for African-American Fred Bell, living in Travis County, Texas.

You can see how wide and varied The Texas Collection’s holdings are! These records—and the finding aids we have online—are just a small representation of the thousands of collections we preserve for future researchers. We’re working hard to make our collections more visible and hope that one of them will spark your interest!

The Most Horrible Storm: A Firsthand Account of the 1953 Waco Tornado

Posted on May 8, 2012

If you have lived in Texas for any amount of time, you’ve experienced a tornado watch, and maybe even a tornado warning. The TV program you were watching is interrupted with dire weather maps, the radio DJ advises folks out in their cars to take shelter, the whole family huddles up in the bathtub—it’s all a little scary, especially when the sirens start to go off. And if you think your town is immune to tornados—as Huaco Native American legend said about Waco—well, an actual F5 storm striking your town is downright terrifying.

"Evidence of the might of a tornado" — Some structures were flattened, some remained standing. Their fates were determined both by structural supports and the tornado's whim.

Harry Gillett’s letter to his mother, started on May 11, 1953, and continued the next day, brings to life that experience of waiting for the Waco tornado and then witnessing its aftermath. Sent home early from the school where he taught, Gillett put pen to paper to describe the storm as it escalated. First he writes of a driving rain, and then of hailstones the size of half dollars. “It has gotten so dark outside that it is practically night and it is only about 4:25.”

Then the hailstones increase to the size of baseballs, and one breaks a shingle of his roof. His father calls and tells him the hail downtown is the size of his fist. The phone lines go down shortly after their conversation. “I have never seen anything like this before. No telling how much damage will be done. There go the lights.”

How much damage will be done, indeed. In the next paragraph, Gillett writes, “I am continuing this letter at 5:00 the morning after I started writing it. Waco had the most horrible storm you can imagine.” The tornado entered the Waco city limits at 4:32 pm, and the funnel cloud was downtown by 4:36. Gillett’s North Waco home is unscathed, apart from the broken shingle. He’s lucky. His letter describes the damage done to the homes of relatives and friends—from a flooded home to a house blown off its foundation, moved a few feet, and “simply ruined.”

Harry Gillett letter describing the 1953 Waco tornado, page 4 — Harry Gillett's letter to his mother gives us insight into the before and after of the 1953 Waco tornado.

But other parts of Waco saw much greater devastation. Some houses were blown to bits. Gillett’s school in East Waco was destroyed, with his classroom the only one left standing on the top floor. And in downtown Waco, the toll, both property and human, was enormous. “R.T. Dennis [building] fell in completely and most of the buildings from there to the river were completely blown apart. Hundreds of people were killed…Downtown Waco has been put under martial law and Daddy will not be able to get to work. Many gas lines are broken down town and everyone is afraid of a terrible explosion.”

The Waco tornado is tied with the 1902 Goliad tornado as the deadliest in Texas history, and is one of the most deadly in US history. 114 people were killed, and property damage was in excess of $50 million—with inflation, that would be about $400 million today. The Waco tornado helped incite the development of a nationwide severe weather warning system. On this week of the 59^th year since the tornado, we remember those who were lost.

You can read the complete letter at The Texas Collection in the Harry Gillett papers. Gillett also saved a few postcards depicting the 1953 tornado’s impact, which we’ve featured in the slide show below. If you’re interested in reading, watching, or listening to more accounts of the storm, check out Waco Tornado 1953: Force that Changed the Face of Waco (an oral history project by the Waco-McLennan County Library and the Baylor Institute for Oral History), “Living Stories: Radio and the 1953 Waco Tornado,” a collaboration of the Institute for Oral History and KWBU-FM, and the “Waco Tornado: Tragedy and Triumph” video at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image. The Portal to Texas History and Waco Tribune-Herald also have compelling images and contemporary news coverage of the storm.

Location, Location, Location: Navigating the 1940 Census

Posted on April 30, 2012

On April 24, 2012, the 1940 census records were released online—the National Archives’ first-ever online U.S. census release. The National Archive website had approximately 22 million hits in four hours, and additional servers had to be added to meet the demand. Did we mention it was a long awaited event? After 72 years, any person interested in accessing these records can do so online for free.

This census took place at a pivotal time in America’s history—the country was pulling its way out of the Great Depression and striving to regain economic stability through Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The 1940 census contains more in-depth information than previous census records about wages, occupation, previous residences, and grade levels achieved—all helpful when working on a family history.

Finding people will take time and effort, because there is not a name index—yet. The National Archives is crowdsourcing that process, meaning they’ve invited anyone who is interested to help with identifying and indexing names. You can learn more about volunteering at https://the1940census.com/.

In the meantime, we wanted to walk you through the process of finding someone in the census using the current search tools. As an example, we chose former Texas governor and past president of Baylor, Pat M. Neff. First, navigate to www.1940census.archives.gov. Start your search by entering as much information as you know: state, county, city and physical address for the individual, or the enumeration district for the person you seek.

For Pat Neff, we knew the state, county, and city. Searching these options gave us 47 enumeration district reports, which are anywhere from one to 60 pages. You would have to search each page for the name.

Luckily, the Waco city directories we have at The Texas Collection contained the address for Neff in 1940. By entering the street name in the last search field, we cut the results down to 8 districts. We further limited our search by choosing the Maps tab. This option brought up a map of Waco from 1940 which listed street names and enumeration districts. When you find the street you need, the enumeration district will be marked close to that section of the map in the form of a three number set followed by a two number set. Neff’s district was 155-20.

Returning to “Start Your Search” where you entered state, county, city and street information, you also have the option to search by enumeration district. We entered the number 155-20 for Pat Neff, and it returned one file.

Clicking on the ED 155-20 file, we saw that it contains 40 pages—sounds like a lot, but it’s not too bad to skim through. On the last page of the file, we found Pat Neff and learned, among other things, that he made $8,400 that year and is listed as being 67 years old.

Again, this takes time, and the more information you know, the quicker a successful search. Consult city directories and phonebooks. If unavailable, try courthouse records or church records for help. Your local library may have these helpful genealogical resources and advice. The Texas Collection has city directories and many other sources to help you search for individuals—we’d love to see you! And we’d like to hear from you—please let us know in the comment section below how your searches went and what you found. Happy hunting!

By Benna Vaughan, Manuscripts Archivist

From Olga Fallen’s Bearettes to Lady Bears National Championships (updated May 11, 2012)

Posted on April 18, 2012

By Geoff Hunt, Audio and Visual Curator

Before Baylor University had the Lady Bears, we had the Bearettes, and before Kim Mulkey, there was Olga Fallen. When Fallen came to Baylor in September 1956, her specialties were dance and swimming. Yet over the course of her career at Baylor, she taught and coached women—then called the Bearettes—in sports ranging from bowling to tennis, and she served as the head basketball and softball coach from 1974–79.

Baylor women's basketball--Suzie Snider Eppers — This down-the-backboard shot shows Suzie Snider Eppers and teammates during a 1970s practice scrimmage.

Most importantly, however, she forged the trail for women’s athletics in the newly created role of Women’s Athletics Coordinator from 1972–79. Scholars interested in women’s athletics, Title IX, and more will find a great resource in the Olga Fallen papers, which are nearly ready for research use here at The Texas Collection.

1970s Baylor women's basketball — Coaches Nancy Goodloe (front left) and Olga Fallen (front right) pose with the Baylor Bearettes in this 1970s team photo

Fallen served during a dynamically changing period for women’s athletics. When she started at Baylor as an assistant professor of physical education, the women’s athletics program resided solely in the physical education department—Athletics with a capital “A” was for men. Then the equal rights movement came along in the 1970s to advocate for equality between the sexes, and Title IX was enacted to give women’s athletic programs an equal share of the resources needed to function on an equal level with the men’s programs.

Fallen was in the right place at the right time to promote her passion for women’s sports. Women’s athletics at Baylor (and many other universities) historically had less coaching staff, financial resources, facilities, and scholarship opportunities than did the men’s sports program. The work to level the playing field was difficult—many objected that Title IX would cause athletic programs to go broke. Fallen’s reply in a 1975 interview was that “the bill [Title IX] means women should get equal opportunity, not equal funding… If they gave me the same amount of money that they gave the men, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

Fallen definitely was accustomed to working on a slim budget—when Fallen began her responsibilities at Baylor, the women’s athletics department ran on a budget of a mere $750. But by 1979, when Fallen left her position as athletic coordinator and coaching duties, the department operated on a budget of tens of thousands of dollars, according to an April 4, 1979 article in the Baylor Lariat. Additionally, by this time the women had their own practice field and gym, the Rena Marrs McLean Gymnasium.

But Fallen wasn’t just an administrator. As a coach, Fallen had a history of success in winning games and in recruiting some top players to the Baylor women’s sports program. For example, in 1973, the first scholarship was given to a female athlete at Baylor University—Suzie Snider Eppers, who came from nearby Robinson High School. Eppers finished her four years at Baylor with an accumulated 3,861 points and was named to Kodak’s All-American team. In doing so, she became the university’s first basketball All-American since 1948. From 1972–1978, Fallen’s win/loss record for the women’s basketball team was an impressive 140-47. Additionally, the team made several trips to the AIAW (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) basketball nationals during this period.

Baylor women's basketball 1970s — Olga Fallen (back far right) stands with the Baylor Bearettes in this early 1970s team photo.

Forty years after Title IX and after years of striving to achieve equality in women’s sports, the Lady Bears across Baylor Athletics have gone above and beyond, showing the strong foundation Fallen lay for women’s athletics. With the Lady Bears Basketball team’s 40-0 win/loss record and NCAA National Championship, and the Equestrian Hunter Seat team’s NCEA National Championship, 2012 is off to a great start. Olga Fallen would be so proud of today’s Lady Bears!

If you’re interested in a quick history of the Lady Bears basketball team, Texas Monthly wrote one after the 2005 championship. Olga Fallen got things started for women’s basketball at Baylor, but it hasn’t been an easy road. And see the Flickr slideshow below for more photos! (Mouse over the picture and click in the bottom right corner to make the slideshow full-screen.)

Update (May 7, 2012): The finding aid for the Olga Fallen Collection [PDF] is complete! Check it out to get an idea of the kinds of materials you might find in her papers.

Update #2 (May 11, 2012): Dr. Nancy Goodloe, a former Bearette, coach, and athletic trainer in the women’s programs (1965-76), is working on a book about the development of the women’s intercollegiate athletic program at Baylor University. She’s doing research at The Texas Collection but also wants to hear from fellow Bearettes and Lady Bears of the 1970-90s. Nancy has a few questions she’d like Baylor female athletes to address—and she wants to hear your stories and anecdotes too! Your voice will bring this project to life!

Nancy will be in touch with you to get the necessary permission if she wants to use your story in her book. You can answer her questions in the comment section below—we’d love to get a conversation going! If you prefer to share your story privately, you can e-mail Nancy. Thanks for your support of this project!

1. Were you a scholarship athlete at Baylor? When? What kind of financial aid did you receive for being an athlete? What sport did you play?

2. Why did you choose to attend Baylor?

3. What did it mean to you as a student to be a female athlete at Baylor?

4. What does it mean to you now to have left this legacy for current and future female athletes?

New Acquisitions

Posted on March 16, 2012

At The Texas Collection we always are excited to acquire new resources for our researchers. But as much as we love archives, books, maps, photographs, and much more, we need the right people to care for all of these materials and make them accessible to our patrons. So we are pleased to announce the addition of two new faculty members!

new archivists at Baylor — Manuscripts Archivist Benna Vaughan and University Archivist Amanda Norman

Amanda Keys Norman joins us as the new University Archivist. Amanda is charged with documenting Baylor’s proud history, from its founding at Independence to the digital records being created as you read. “The records found in The Texas Collection were created when the history was happening—when Pat Neff Hall was dedicated, when the Immortal Ten tragedy struck the campus, and much more—I’m proud to be a part of preserving that history, these documents of Baylor’s heritage.”

Benna Vaughan serves as the new Manuscripts Archivist. Benna is our new go-to person for Texas history ranging from the Civil War to Baptist history, cooking to education, Waco history to postcard collections. “The Texas Collection is like Christmas every day of the year… you are always coming across something new and fresh.”

Amanda and Benna are taking the helm of “Blogging about Texas,” and gratitude is in order to Alice Campbell, our outgoing blogger. In addition to researching and writing for this blog, Alice served The Texas Collection as a cataloger, curated our “Believe Me Your Own” Civil War letters online exhibition and developed our Flickr presence. Thank you! Please continue to look to “Blogging about Texas” as Benna, Amanda and the rest of our staff work to tell the stories hidden in The Texas Collection.

A Homegrown Vision: Robert L. Smith and the Farmers Improvement Society

Posted on February 13, 2012

In the late 1800s, Robert Lloyd Smith came to Texas. Smith, a highly educated man and an advocate of Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of education and economic improvement for African-Americans, called himself a “practical sociologist.” He was also an educator and a businessman. In 1890 Smith founded the Farmers’ Home Improvement Society in Colorado County.

Smith created the F.I.S. as a self-improvement society to help tenant farmers out of a cycle of debt and poverty. The Society provided life insurance, financed a bank in Waco, operated an agricultural boarding school, and provided a social life in a religious and fraternal setting for African-Americans across Texas. At its high point in 1911, the Farmers’ Improvement Society claimed 12,000 members in 800 branches across Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Smith’s wife, Ruby Cobb of Waco, was instrumental in helping him run the F.I.S.

A Homegrown Vision: Robert L. Smith and the Farmers Improvement Society was curated by Paul Fisher and Ann Payne and is made possible through the generous gift of materials from the Smith-Cobb family of Waco.

Stop by The Texas Collection from February 1 – March 20, 2012 to view the exhibit.

Click on images to enlarge.

Believe me your own: letters from the battlefield to Fanny from Alex

Posted on January 9, 2012

In November, 1861, Dr. Alex Morgan enlisted for a one-year term of service with the 19th Louisiana Infantry of the Confederate Army. He left behind his wife Fanny and their four children, and, though the couple expected to reunite at the end of his year of service, in fact they would not see each other again for nearly four years.

Two days after the Battle of Shiloh, Alex wrote his beloved wife to share “not an account of the battle, that you will see in the paper, but…my own impressions of things, as they passed before me.” His frank, poignant, and often wryly humorous letters tell a powerful story of enduring love during the war that would determine the future of a young nation.

Join us in waiting for news from the battlefield: each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from January 9 to March 9, 2012.

Alex Morgan’s letters to Fanny were preserved by their granddaughter, Maggie Scott Logue (1884-1985). In 2007, the children and grandchildren of Maggie Logue decided that the letters should be kept together, donated to the Texas Collection, and be available to the public. The Texas Collection is pleased to share the Morgan Letters through this exhibit.

Baylor Claims Her Own: Homecoming 1909

Posted on November 3, 2011

Just in time for Homecoming 2011, The Texas Collection has rediscovered a rare advertising cover from the very first Home-coming held in 1909. The gold lettering still shines on the green envelope which proudly declares “Baylor Claims Her Own.”

Baylor’s 1909 Homecoming celebration was one of the very first collegiate homecomings held in America. It took place on Thanksgiving weekend and included a band concert, class and society reunions, and an old-time “soirée” where students could listen to music.

The idea of a homecoming would certainly have been familiar to many members of the Baylor community as it was a common celebration in rural southern churches. Homecoming in these churches usually took place annually as a way of bringing people who had been scattered by migration into cities and towns back to their sacred place of origin. Sometimes the festivities would honor the charter members of the congregation, and always there was the celebration of families and the recognition of the church as the “family of God.” In this way the themes of history and tradition, community and family were woven into the fabric of the day.

The letter sent in its Home-coming envelope, is addressed to Papa. Apparently students’ needs in 1909 were not so different from those today. The author asks for his mother to send him some clothes he left behind, and he also needs some money by first of the week to buy an overcoat. Just to let everyone know that he’s being frugal, the student sends home a statement of how his money has been spent.

He also shares a bit of news, mentioning a trip to San Antonio where he saw Alamo and other places of interest. He inquires as to Papa’s health since he “Got letter from Mama heard you not feeling well…” and asks “Have you gotten the bay filly from Brown’s yet or is his boy still riding her?”

You can see more items from the history of Baylor Homecomings on exhibit at The Texas Collection in Carroll Library. We hope you’ll stop by to join the fun!