CenterPoints - Issue 02 - Fall 2013

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE BRISCOE CENTER FOR AMERICAN HISTORY

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

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FDR’S HAMMER

The Life and Times of the Most Important Man You’ve Never Heard of

IN THIS ISSUE

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Center Acquires Unique Flag History Collection

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John Lomax: Digitizing Folklore with UT’s iSchool

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JFK 50 Years Later: The Briscoe Center’s Resource Guide

DIRECTOR’S LETTER

WRITING GARNER BACK IN

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ADVISORY COUNCIL Katherine J. Adams Raye Virginia Allen The Hon. Michael A. Andrews John S. Blades Henry J. Boehm Jr. Theodora V. Boehm William W. Bottorff Karey P. Bresenhan Penny H. Burck R. D. Burck G. Paul Burns Harvey Dorsey Caughey Jo Anne Christian Barbara Smith Conrad Joseph M. Cooper Alice S. Dawson O. Howard Frazier Richard A. Garriott de Cayeux David M. Garza Slavka Glaser Larry L. Harlan Jess T. Hay Jane P. Hilfer John S. Hogg The Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison Wm. Dean Justice Kate S. Kirkland Kathleen Tobin Krueger The Hon. Robert C. Krueger Clyde R. Littlefield Janey B. Marmion Agelia Perez Marquez Scott N. Morse John Randolph Parten Charles R. Porter Jr. Nancy O’Bryant Puentes Julian O. Read Joseph W. Royce Mark S. Smith Warren E. Spector Neal L. Spelce Jr. Dianne D. Tucker Amy S. Villarreal Diana Walker Sheila J. Wojcik Barbara Woodman

Briscoe Center for American History

n the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy made what was probably the last telephone call of a life cut short. Who did he call? A family member? An international statesman? A powerful congressman or governor? He called John Nance Garner and wished him a happy birthday. What made the 95-year-old Texan important enough to receive such a call from Kennedy? The answer lies in a strand of our national narrative that has been largely forgotten.

Garner represented Uvalde in Congress for 30 years before becoming the nation’s vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt. He transformed the vice presidency into a powerful executive office and was responsible for shepherding through much of Roosevelt’s early New Deal legislation. Historians who wish to understand the roots of modern American government, as well as the controversy surrounding its reach, should look to Garner’s life and legacy.

With that in mind, the Briscoe Center has produced Cactus Jack, a documentary about Garner that aims to restore his political legacy (see page 2). We’re also proud to announce that the Briscoe-Garner museum in Uvalde will reopen Dec. 10. We will premiere Cactus Jack in Uvalde as part of the reopening celebration, and we hope that you can join us (details on page 3).

Reviving the historical legacy of Garner is part of the center’s mission to foster exploration of our nation’s past. We do this by collecting, preserving and making available historical evidence.

In this sense, history is a cause, not merely a topic of interest or academic pursuit. An informed knowledge of history is essential to the good health of a democracy.

With that in mind, I’m pleased that Alice Dawson, David Garza, John Hogg, The Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Neal Spelce and Barbara Woodman have joined the cause as members of our Advisory Council. Along with their peers, they serve as the center’s ambassadors to the wider community, helping us tell our story and identifying partners and resources upon which we can draw.

Our new council members join us at an exciting time. The center recently received a $184,000 grant for new research equipment and has also secured several important financial gifts that contribute to our “Campaign to Make History” (opposite page 12). In particular, I am grateful to Dr. Paul Burns, Mark McLaughlin, the University Co-Op and the Stillwater Foundation for generous donations. I am also pleased to announce the appointment of Lisa Avra as our new chief development officer. Lisa has more than 20 years of fundraising experience in the nonprofit, higher education and museum worlds, and she will no doubt prove invaluable to the campaign.

We are now around over halfway toward our goal of raising the $6.2 million needed to renovate Sid Richardson Hall, equipping it with a new reading room and 4,000 square feet of much needed exhibit space. We know that the demand for Briscoe Center exhibits is high. The fall semester has seen the closing of our Texas Furniture exhibit at the Bullock Texas State History Museum and News to History at the LBJ Presidential Library. More than 100,000 people saw Texas Furniture, and News to History proved such a success that it will now travel to the Nixon Presidential Library in California (page 11). I look forward to seeing the “Campaign to Make History” through to completion.

Don Carleton, Ph.D. Executive Director Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IN THIS ISSUE

FALL SEMESTER 2013

2 John Nance Garner

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The modern vice presidency begins with Garner but he has been largely forgotten by history. The Briscoe Center is writing him back in.

4 Flag History Research What significance do flags hold? The Whitney Smith Flag History Research Collection brims with historical evidence and creates a new collection strength.

Contributors: Lisa Avra Don Carleton Brenda Gunn Erin Purdy Denise Mayorga Irashema Medrano John Wheat David Zepeda Editor: Ben Wright Designer: Chris Duncan

5 Recent Acquisitions

Connect: www.briscoecenter.org facebook.com/briscoecenter twitter.com/briscoecenter

The papers of renowned academic and activist Norman Birnbaum add to the center’s intellectual history resources. The Foodways Texas Oral History Archive adds flavor to holdings related to Texas history.

6 Digitizing Lomax Working with students to digitize recordings and documents from the archives of a famous folklorist will open up the songs of the South to new audiences.

8 Collection Strength: JFK 1963

10 HiPSTAS A cross-campus initiative will see cassette tapes from the center’s sound recording collections analyzed and catalogued to enhance their research potential.

11 Materials in Action Center collections are a big hit in the classroom, in presidential libraries and on Facebook.

12 Making History Searchable By using online tools to enlist volunteers, documents in the Natchez Trace Collection will be transcribed and made searchable.

Divisions

Office of the Director Arno Nowotny Building 2300 Red River St. Stop D1100 Austin TX, 78712-1426 (512) 495-4684

Research and Collections Sid Richardson Hall 2.106 2300 Red River St. Stop D1100 Austin TX, 78712-1426 (512) 495-4515

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Center holdings related to the Kennedy assassination enrich our academic understanding and public remembrance of that fateful day.

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Sam Rayburn Museum 800 West Sam Rayburn Drive Bonham, Texas 75418-4103 (903) 583-2455 

Briscoe-Garner Museum 333 North Park Street Uvalde, Texas 78801-4658 (830) 278-5018 

Front cover: John Nance Garner wielding a gavel as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Back Cover: Christmas Pyramide by Emil Schuhmann. Part of the Winedale historical collections and recently restored by center conservators.

Winedale Historical Complex 3738 FM 2714 Round Top, Texas 78954-4901 (979) 278-3530

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JOHN NANCE GARNER

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In March, the center hosted “An Evening with Diana Walker and Lucian Perkins” at the LBJ Auditorium. Perkins and Walker spoke about their favorite pictures in the exhibit while also giving the packed audience interesting insights into the work of White House photographers. The event coincided with the Briscoe Center’s Advisory Council meeting, which met the following morning. Watch the video: www.briscoecenter.org/walkerperkins

JOHN NANCE GARNER

Out of the Vaults, Onto the Screen

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ohn Nance Garner is said to have once quipped that the vice as a state representative, to make the prickly pear cactus the state presidency wasn’t “worth a bucket of warm piss.” However, flower. He rose to speaker of the House of Representatives and leveraged his political clout to become Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vice when he crossed the Potomac for the last time in 1940, the presidential running mate in 1932. Garner used his considerable office had been transformed — and has since been worth a whole legislative experience to enable the first wave of Roosevelt’s New lot more.

Deal legislation.

“The history of the modern vice presidency really begins with The film was directed by RTF professor Nancy Schiesari and John Nance Garner,” says Briscoe Center Executive Director Don shot and produced by Hans-Martin Liebing (RTF Ph.D. ’12). It was Carleton, who is also executive producer of a new film about Garner. “But he’s been largely ignored by my fellow historians, in edited by Rebecca Adams (RTF B.S. ’10), and RTF Senior Lecturer part because he doesn’t fit within the clichéd assumptions held by Anne Lewis. The Briscoe Center’s Echo Uribe was the producer. many about the New Deal.”

“Getting a narrative going The documentary, Cactus Jack: Born in Texas during Reconstruction, Garner through interviews, voice-overs The Political Legacy of John Nance died at the age of 98 during the Space Age, and narration gave a voice to the Garner, was made possible by having played a vital role in the transformation film,” says Schiesari. “We used funding from the U.S. Institute of of American government. archival footage, images, and his Museum and Library Services and own life created a story arc that the center’s Briscoe Endowment. Cactus Jack represents a crossshowed why he was somewhat written off by history.” campus collaboration among the Briscoe Center and the College For Liebing, filming highlights included shooting on location in of Communication’s Department of Radio-Television-Film and Washington, D.C., flying planes over Uvalde to shoot aerial footage and co-teaching a documentary class around the film with School of Journalism.

Schiesari in the School of Journalism.

“Garner was one of the most powerful but overlooked men to “We tutored a very gifted group of students who created their ever emerge from Texas,” says Bill Minutaglio, clinical professor in own short Garner documentaries for the Briscoe-Garner Museum the School of Journalism and the film’s writer. “You could argue in Uvalde,” says Liebing. “Working on the documentary brought that much of what FDR accomplished would never have occurred history alive for all of us. I certainly will never look at American without Garner.” politics the same way again.”

Garner was nicknamed “Cactus Jack” because of his attempts,

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Briscoe Center for American History

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Above: Bourbon bottle presented to Garner. The label paraphrases his famous quip, “striking a blow for liberty.” Above right: The Briscoe-Garner Museum, set to reopen this December. Right: Roosevelt and Garner put on comedy act, 1940.

Garner seems in many ways a contradictory figure — anti-Wall Street but also profoundly anti-union; for the New Deal before he was against it; an active promoter of government-sponsored infrastructure projects but deeply suspicious of social welfare; key to carrying the South for Roosevelt and forging the New Deal coalition, yet the forces that eventfully tore that coalition apart were present in his own misgivings.

“The documentary will complement the educational mission of the Briscoe-Garner Museum in Uvalde,” says Carleton. “We will have screenings at the museum and it will be made available to schools and colleges. We eventually hope to broadcast the documentary on television to inform a much wider segment of the public.”

Cactus Jack will premiere in Uvalde on Dec. 10 as part of the reopening celebrations for the Briscoe-Garner Museum.

Briscoe–Garner Museum Open House 333 North Park St, Uvalde, TX Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013; noon – 4:00 p.m.

Ribbon cutting and short program at noon

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RECENT ACQUISITIONS

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THE WHITNEY SMITH FLAG HISTORY COLLECTION “O say can you see by the dawn’s early light” “Come and take it” “Contre nous de la tyrannie, L’étendard sanglant est levé.”

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ou’ve probably heard — or seen — these phrases before.

Briscoe Center. “This acquisition creates a significant new collection strength for the center.”

Whether taken from “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the The collection includes the contents of the Flag Research Texas Revolution or the French national anthem, all Center, created in 1962 and directed by Whitney Smith. The three share the centrality of flags to the cultural and political center was home to thousands of books, charts, pamphlets, serimessages they convey. als, clippings and flags. Moving the collection took a crew of 12 “Flags are symbols of who we are — or who we think we are. people four days to pack into two 53-foot trailers.

Like words, flags are representations of ideas. The ever shrewd “By entrusting this collection to the university, Dr. Smith has Napoleon recognized their power: ‘It is with these things that ensured that it remains a vibrant resource for scholars across the men are led,’” says Charles Spain, secretary-general of the Fédération Internationale des country and around the world,” “Do flags really matter? Our actions suggest Associations Vexillologiques. says Hugh Brady, president of the they do. Just look around.”

The Briscoe Center has acNorth American Vexillological AsCharles Spain quired the Whitney Smith Flag sociation and director of the Legislative Lawyering Clinic at the UT School of Law. “Flags matter.

History Research Collection. This vast and unique archive provides documentation essential to research in the academic disPeople fly them, fight for them, burn them and fuss over them.” cipline that seeks to understand the symbolism and significance Brady defines vexillology as “the discipline that looks at how of flags and heraldry. these symbols and their usage help us understand the rise and “I’m delighted and proud that the center will be the home of fall of human societies and cultures.” The Briscoe Center is the Whitney Smith Collection, the most important and complete home to numerous resources that complement such study, including captured battle flags found in its material culture holdarchive of its kind,” says Don Carleton, executive director of the

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RECENT ACQUISITIONS

The Norman Birnbaum Papers

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Top: Early rendition of the Texas flag. Above left: Jackie Kennedy holds the flag that draped President Kennedy’s coffin. Copyright Eddie Adams/ Associated Press. Above right: Front page of a music score. ings; significant photographs of flags in its photojournalism holdings; documents related to the original design of the Texas flag in the Stephen F. Austin papers; and film resources featuring flags and heraldry.

“All sorts of entities use flags to transmit information about their story and identity,” says Carleton. “Texas is a fitting home for the Whitney Smith Collection, a state that self-identifies by the lone star on its flag.”

The collection was donated by Whitney Smith and his family.

Smith coined the term vexillology (from the latin vexill, for flag) and has shepherded it through to maturity as a community of scholars, publications and enthusiasts. Smith even designed the national flag of Guyana in 1966.

“Dr. Smith has spent his life’s work creating, building and maintaining a treasure trove of material that will permit scholars across disciplines in their endeavors to explain the human condition,” says Brady.

Here at the Briscoe Center, Smith’s work will be persevered, cataloged, pored over and opened up for academic research, and it will act as a magnet for similar collections in the future.

he Briscoe Center has acquired the papers of American sociologist Norman Birnbaum, a renowned intellectual who has been active in politics, academia and journalism on both sides of the Atlantic since the 1950s. The collection joins others at the center documenting the lives and careers of significant American scholars, including Walter Prescott Webb, Lewis Gould, Clarence Ayres, Lewis Filler and C. Wright Mills.

“For over 60 years, Norman Birnbaum has conducted one of the most diverse, fascinating and erudite bodies of correspondence in modern American letters,” says James Galbraith, professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. “His letters will inform and delight generations of scholars for years to come.”

Birnbaum has taught sociology at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, the University of Strasbourg and Amherst College. He is professor emeritus at Georgetown University Law Center. A prolific author and essayist, his writings include The Crisis of Industrial Society (1969) and After Progress: American Social Reform and European Socialism in the Twentieth Century (2001).

“I chose the Briscoe Center because of the quality and depth of the collection. Having my papers there makes me feel part of a wider and broader sort of American history,” says Birnbaum.

Oral History Archive

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hat’s what we’re doing, we’re serving a tradition,” said Betty Zentner, owner of Zentner’s Daughter Steakhouse in San Angelo. “[It] was started by my father. And to have it preserved as you guys [Foodways Texas] are going to do is great.”

The Briscoe Center has acquired the archives of the Foodways Texas project. Through oral history projects, documentary films, recipe collections and scholarly research, Foodways Texas educates future generations about the stories behind what we eat. Its oral history archive documents restaurant owners, pit masters, brewers, farmers, ranchers and grocers through more than 75 hours of audio interviews, 7,000 photos, documentary footage, menus, advertising materials, cookbooks and posters.

“Current and future researchers will have access to the actual words and voices of the Texans who influence, synthesize, learn from and pass on the state’s diverse food culture,” says Marvin Bendele, executive director of Foodways Texas.

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TEACHING MISSION

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“Frankly, my own interest in American ballads is largely because they are human documents that reveal the mode of thinking, the character of life and the point of view of the vigorous, red-blooded, restless Americans, who could no more live contented shut in by four walls than could Beowulf and his clan.”

–John Lomax, 1913

DIGITIZING LOMAX

Working with the iSchool to Preserve a Famous Legacy

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Briscoe Center for American History

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riving through the back roads of the South during the Great Depression, John A. Lomax visited prison farms, ranches, saloons and many other places you wouldn’t expect to find academics. He was driven by the desire to rescue from obscurity a strain of American culture that was dying out. Earlier in his career, Lomax used his books to “beg the cooperation of all who are interested in this vital yet humble expression of American literature.” Nearly a century later, the Briscoe Center, home of Lomax’s papers, is still heeding that call.

During the fall and spring semesters, the center is collaborating with a digitization class at the UT School of Information to scan extensive portions of the John A. Lomax Family Papers. Graduate students at the iSchool have been pursuing digitization projects with center collections since 2005. This latest project will be placed online and makes possible an in-depth exploration of the life and work of

this legendary American folklorist.

Lomax (1867–1948) graduated from The University of Texas in 1897.

Later, he served as an editor of the Alcalde alumni magazine and as a secretary to the university’s president. He also helped found the Texas Folklore Society. He is best known for his field recordings of thousands of American ballads that otherwise might have been forgotten.

Beginning with his acclaimed 1910 collection Cowboy Songs, Lomax expanded his vision of what folklorists should be preserving to embrace all ethnic groups and classes of society, even the downtrodden, the criminal and the homeless. In 1933, while collecting ballads for the Library of Congress in Louisiana, Lomax encountered Huddie Ledbetter (aka “Lead Belly”), one of many folk artists he brought to national attention. Lomax sent copies of the field recordings along with those of other prominent folklorists to The University of Texas, and the collection eventually came to the Briscoe Center. Digital copies now exist for more than 500 reels of field recordings.

The Lomax Papers total 80 linear feet and are rich in correspondence, ballad texts, photographs and other materials that shed light on the field recordings. Students will digitize a wide variety of materials including letters, telegrams, recording logs and photographs. Items that deal with field recordings will be matched and synchronized to those recordings. The project will be made available at http://av.cah.utexas.edu.

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“Walk with Me” from the book Songs and Spirituals of Negro Composition, John Avery Lomax Family Papers

“Bill Cunningham is one of the most eloquent and energetic voices for higher education Texas has ever had.”

Bill Hobby Former Lieutenant Governor of Texas The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, as the repository of UT Austin’s historical records, is pleased to publish Bill Cunningham’s memoir The Texas Way: Money, Power, Politics, and Ambition at The University.

Cunningham’s engaging memoir details his seven years as president of The University of Texas at Austin and his eight years as chancellor of the UT System. The Texas Way outlines how money, power, politics, and ambition all play roles in the business of running the state’s premier university system.

During his time at UT, Cunningham dealt with many conflicts including fraternity hazing, affirmative action, the demise of the Southwest Conference, and the creation of the Big 12, apartheid and divestment protests, and the future of higher education in Texas.

www.briscoecenter.org Now available locally and online.

Distributed by The University of Texas Press.

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COLLECTIONS IN FOCUS

“ONE OF THE MOST HISTORIC DAYS IN OUR LIVES” Remembering the Tragedy, Researching the Legacy

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of the very few southern congressmen to vote for the Civil Rights here are certain dates deeply etched in the American conscience, burned into the memory of all who experienced and Voting Rights acts. Brooks can be seen to the upper right of them. Events like Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and the assassination of Jackie Kennedy in the famous photograph of Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office in Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963.

John F. Kennedy are what Walter Cronkite once called “monumental collective national experiences.”

Julian Read was press secretary for Texas Gov. John Connally, 2013 is the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, and who was present and injured in the presidential limousine. Read the center’s resources have much light to shed on that fateful event. rushed to Parkland Hospital, where he found the first lady and Nellie Connally outside the trauma The center is home to Cronkite’s papers and published his memoir.

“It took us 10 minutes to get a camera into the rooms. Mrs. Connally relayed to As CBS’s news anchor, Cronkite studio and warmed up. Meanwhile, we were Read what she had experienced in limousine, information he used was intimately intertwined with a only doing audio with a slide of the CBS logo the in his press briefings that same day. generation’s experience of the ason the screen.” sassination.

The Briscoe Center published JFK’s Walter Cronkite, as told to Final Hours in Texas, Read’s memHis papers include logs and tranDon Carleton in an interview in 1990 scripts of CBS’s live coverage and oir of the assassination, in October. feature his original notes: “That is “Volumes have been written the way it was on one of the most historic days of our lives.” about all that happened following the assassination,” says Read.

Cronkite’s papers are joined by others at the center acquired “But little has been recorded about the things that did not happen. Kennedy was due to travel to Austin for a fundraiser and gala. from journalists and politicians working in Dallas that day, including three men present in the presidential motorcade.

Hundreds of Texans from all over the state were already in their hotels preparing for that evening. The decorations were all in place.

U.S. Rep. Jack Brooks travelled in one of the cars behind the presidential limousine and later stood by during the swearing in of PresiThe barbeque at the LBJ Ranch was cooking. These stories leave a dent Lyndon B. Johnson on Air Force One at Love Field. He was one unique local imprint upon the national heartbreak that followed.”

Mood of Dallas after Kennedy Assassination, Shel Hershorn Photographic Archive

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Briscoe Center for American History

Photo By Cecil Stoughton/HOPD

Read’s archive includes invitations to these cancelled events, his personal notes from Parkland, handwritten press requests and even an angry telegram from CBS News. The archive also includes a document created by one of Connally’s staffers, furnishing the president with local references to give his Texas speeches some provincial charm. The references for Austin include praise for UT, an Oklahoma Sooners joke and another about Coach Darrell Royal running for office.

Finally, Seth Kantor was present in the White House press bus and, like Read, rushed to Parkland. He later testified before the Warren Commission that while at the hospital he spoke with Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby, a detail refuted by the Warren Commission. Later, Kantor questioned official accounts of the assassination in his book, Who Was Jack Ruby?, positing that the Dallas police had allowed Ruby into the jail basement where Oswald was being held specifically to kill him — a theory disputed by other students of the tragic events surrounding JFK’s murder. His papers include rough drafts and research notes from the book, cassette tape interviews, photographs and correspondence.

Fifty years later, the center’s collections are open to scholars, students and members of the public who wish to research the assassination. The same will be true next year when a happier anniversary is commemorated — the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Collection Highlights John F. Kennedy Collection, 1960–1964: contains memorabilia concerning Kennedy’s visit to Texas, including the text for speeches he intended to deliver in Dallas and Austin.

Henry B. Gonzalez Papers: contains materials related to Gonzalez as co-chair of Kennedy’s “Viva Kennedy” effort and Gonzalez’s attempts to establish a congressional committee to investigate the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Shel Hershorn Photographic Archive: includes photos of Lee Harvey Oswald, the residents of Dallas reacting to the assassination, the Kennedy-Johnson campaign in Texas and the Garrison investigation.

Flip Schulke Photographic Archive: includes photos of the Kennedy funeral and the Texas School Book Depository immediately after the assassination.

Dallas Morning News Editorial Records: documents the public response to the paper’s editorials on Kennedy, conservative advertisements in the paper related to his administration and the assassination. e_hbg_0066

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View from the Texas School Book Depository, © Flip Schulke; Left: Who Was Jack Ruby?,

by Seth Kantor. Above: Local remarks prepared for Kennedy by Connally staffers.

It appears that Kennedy’s Austin speech would have started with the line, “I’m particularly proud to be here in Texas at the home of the great University of Texas.” di_08158

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MATERIALS IN ACTION

BRISCOE MIXES WITH HiPSTAS

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ow many cassette tapes remain in archival storage, unused by researchers because no one knows what’s on the tape?

Far too many, according to a recent study published by the Council on Library and Information Resources and the Library of Congress. The report predicts that, if scholars and students do not make use of the tapes, archives will not be able to justify allocating resources to preserve them. However, neither archival staffers nor scholars have the time needed to listen to the thousands of hours of tape in order to ascertain details of their contents.

“There are hundreds of thousands of important spoken text audio files, dating back to the 19th century, that represent significant literary figures and bygone oral traditions that are virtually inaccessible,” says Tanya Clement at the UT School of Information.

“We have very little access to these cultural artifacts.”

What if technology could “listen” to those recordings, scanning for gaps and detecting transitions? Rather than listening to an entire cassette, archivists could dive into a tape at the point of change and note the particulars that would be meaningful to scholars; these changes could become the basis of cataloging information, allowing scholars to make informed decisions about what to consult and what to leave behind on a research trip.

To such ends, the Briscoe Center has teamed up with Clement and the HiPSTAS project. HiPSTAS (High Performance Sound Technologies for Access and Scholarship) will bring together scholars, archivists and computer scientists to create digital analysis tools that will increase access to opaque sound collections.

HiPSTAS researchers will test ideas and pilot tools on numerous collections, including the center’s UT Folklore Center Archives. Only in general terms do archivists know the subject content of these tapes. The project will result in an open-source, freely available suite of software tools that archivists can use with audio files.

“We didn’t need to think very hard about collaborating. Not only is working with the iSchool a natural fit for us, it is also fundamentally what the Briscoe Center does — we preserve and make accessible historical evidence, including sound resources, and we support the teaching mission of this university,” says Brenda Gunn, associate

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director for research and collections.

The potential for uncovering hidden gems is high. For example, the Oral History of the Texas Oil Industry Records include 218 taped interviews. On one tape, Robert Frost was discovered reciting his poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” It was found on a tape noted only for an interview with an oil industry pioneer, because someone listened and made a footnote in the finding aid.

What other gems await discovery in the center’s collections? With HiPSTAS, we stand a good chance of finding out!

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a 4, 2013 s a stm ber 1

Churrdi ay Decem .

Sat 4 p.m o t n Noo

Free Admission Open to the Public Family Entertainment Children’s Activities Wagon Rides Pioneer Folklife Demonstrations Live Music and Dancers WWW.WINEDALE.ORG

MATERIALS IN ACTION

HOW CENTER COLLECTIONS ARE BEING USED BY OTHERS

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e la Peña diary at the Bullock: What if David Crockett was captured and executed, rather than dying in a blaze of glory?

On display currently at the Bullock Texas State History Museum is a page from the controversial memoir of José Enrique de la Peña, a Mexican army officer who was an eyewitness to the battle of the Alamo.

According to de la Peña, “Some seven men had survived the general carnage and … were brought before Santa Anna. Among them was … David Crockett, well known in North America for his unusual adventures. … Several officers … thrust themselves forward … and with swords in hand, fell upon these unfortunate, defenseless men.”

History is written by the victors, so the saying goes. The Alamo is one of the exceptions, one bbp_130509_8213 wrapped in mythology and state identity, with the assertion that Crockett fought to the death. De la (L-R) Dr. Don Carleton, Luci Baines Johnson, Senator Kay Bailey Peña’s diary has the capacity to rewrite the hisdi_02228 Hutchison and President Bill Powers, celebrating Unflinching Courage: tory books, but even he cannot help admire the bravery Pioneering Women Who Shaped Texas. of Crockett and his compatriots: “Though tortured before they were Don’t mess with Texas women: Former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s killed, these unfortunates died without complaining and without new book, Unflinching Courage: Pioneering Women Who Shaped Texas, humiliating themselves before their torturers.” features items from center collections and assistance from center News to History to Nixon: The Briscoe Center’s exhibit, News to Hisstaffers, who created maps illustrating important sites involved in tory: Photojournalism and the Presidency, is now on display at the the Texas Revolution, as well as late 19th-century cattle trails.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Orange County, Calif. PreviA White House perspective of 9/11: To commemorate the events ously on display at the LBJ Presidential Library, the exhibit covers of September 11, 2001, the Briscoe Center and the LBJ Presidential 80 years of presidential photojournalism from Franklin Roosevelt Library co-sponsored an evening of remembrance. The program, to Barack Obama. moderated by LBJ director Mark Updegrove, featured former White Teaching 2.0: The Briscoe Center hosted teachers from around the House staffers Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, Clay Johnson III and White world in June as part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American House photographer Eric Draper, who shared their memories of History Seminar. The goal of the seminar is to help bring new retraveling with the president or working from the White House on search and excitement about history into classrooms across the 9/11. Eric Draper’s archives are held at the center. country. Teachers worked with archival sources from the center’s Social media: Engaging 21st-century students means going online. collections to improve the quality of history education. UT Austin On UT’s official Facebook page, followed by 498,000 people, Briscoe has been selected as a distinguished institution for training the next Center collections are regularly highlighted. Students have respondgeneration of teachers by the institute. The seminar was coordinated by viewing, liking, commenting and also sharing these artifacts. ed by the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

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MARTIN LUTHER KING AT UT AUSTIN, 1962 50,080 VIEWS; 528 LIKES; 72 SHARES

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VIEW FROM THE UT TOWER, 1967 86,976 VIEWS; 1,043 LIKES; 113 SHARES

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LONGHORN BAND IN ‘TEXAS’ FORMATION 150,912 VIEWS; 4,768 LIKES; 837 SHARES

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NEW PROJECT

SEARCHING HISTORY

Get Involved. Get Transcribing. Now.

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efore the era of modern printing, medieval European scribes were resigned to copying by hand maps, manuscripts, laws and proclamations. The spread of documents and their ideas was slow. Printing revolutionized how people shared information, but it was not until the invention of the typewriter that personal correspondence began its slow migration from paper to inbox.

The Briscoe Center is home to thousands of handwritten documents including letters penned by George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston. To this day, the word archive conjures in the imagination the figure of the lone researcher poring over paper artifacts and scribbling down quotations.

Imagine if those artifacts existed as digital text, ready for scholars, students and members of the public to search, copy and share.

Although many of the center’s documents have been digitized, only a fraction have been transcribed. The center recently launched a crowdsourcing project aimed at transcribing important documents found in our holdings, starting with the Natchez Trace Collection. The project, “Making History Searchable,” allows volunteers to transcribe documents online in their Web browsers.

Volunteers can browse or search documents, selecting one they are comfortable transcribing. They can then begin typing what they see into the box below. It’s possible to comment on a document and zoom in and out to get a better view of the text. The result will be a body of historical literature that is more accessible to research-

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Briscoe Center for American History

ers and more easily shared by enthusiasts.

The project begins with 300 items from the Natchez Trace Collection, which totals more than 450 linear feet of materials illuminating the history of the Lower Mississippi River Valley from the 1760s to the 1920s.

It’s easy to get involved! Simply: 1) Visit www.briscoecenter.org/transcribe 2) Select a document you wish to help transcribe 3) Type what you see Your efforts will be reviewed by a professional archivist and will prove invaluable to future researchers. The project was made possible by Web staffers at the National Archives, who developed the Transcribr software app that powers websites built in the Drupal programming code. The center is currently migrating all of its online assets into Drupal, so we can leverage future open-source apps.

In the future, the center hopes to expand the Transcribr project to include other collections.

CAMPAIGN TO MAKE HISTORY

CAMPAIGN UPDATE

T

he next phase in the evolution of the Briscoe Center is to modernize and update the Briscoe Center’s 42-year-old public service areas in Sid Richardson Hall, creating a place that is truly worthy of its world-class collections and programs. The center has raised just over half of the campaign total so far. Due to the outpouring of support for this project, the Briscoe Center has raised the funds needed to begin the exterior signage portion. Look for construction to begin in early 2014!

The renovated interior will boast 4,000 square feet of exhibit gallery space; a state-of-the-art reading room; two seminar rooms for educational programs; exterior signage; and a highly visible entrance repositioned on the north side of the building. The total campaign goal is $6.2 million, which includes design, construction, furnishings, technology, and first-year programming and exhibitions.

We will be able to “turn the spade” on the interior project once we reach $4.2 million.

Naming opportunities are available. Gifts can be funded with stock transfers and IRA rollovers (extended through Dec 31, 2013) as well as cash. For more information please contact Lisa Avra, associate director and chief development officer, at 512495-4696 or l.avra@austin.utexas.edu.

The new design will feature graphic treatments inspired by center collections on the windows of Sid Richardson Hall.

“Much Anticipated”

- Dallas Morning News

J

ulian Read, a Texas political insider who delivered the first eyewitness report of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination to the media, has authored a behind-the-scenes account that chronicles the tragedy and its fifty-year legacy.

Read, a media representative for Texas Governor John B. Connally in 1963, documents not only the immediate agony endured by the people in the epicenter of the tragedy but also the continuing experience of a wounded community recovering from its aftermath.

www.briscoecenter.org Available on Amazon and at BookPeople

CenterPoints Newsletter

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2300 Red River St., Stop D1100 Austin, TX 78712 briscoecenter.org (512) 495-4515

COLLECTIONS IN FOCUS

BEFORE AND AFTER

Winedale’s Christmas Pyramide

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mil Schuhmann’s whimsical Christmas Pyramide, acquired

by Ima Hogg in Waldeck, Fayette County, is unique to the Winedale historical collections. Pyramides such as these were popular in Germany at the time Schuhmann carved it with his pocketknife around 1880. Using cedar wood and papiermâché, the pyramide is set in motion as heat rises from oil lamps, catching the blades and turning a shaft that propels a band of soldiers, miners and musicians.

Briscoe Center conservator Jennifer Evers repaired the damaged blades and palm trees. Faced with cracks, splits, chips and breaks, Evers pieced the cedar wood and papier-mâché back together, adding finishing touches of paint to conceal repairs.

As a result of the treatments, the pyramide was featured in the Briscoe Center’s Texas Furniture exhibit at the Bullock Museum. It is now safely back at Winedale, along with all the other items displayed in the exhibit. Come see them at the “Christmas at Winedale” celebration. (Dec. 14, 2013; noon-4 p.m.; 3738 FM 2714, Fayette County, Texas.)

Emil Schuhmann

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