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Special Collections Division the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Vol. XIV * No. 1 * Spring and Fall 2000 |
Goodwin describes
several significant items added to the growing cartographic collections of the Special
Collections Division, including an eighteenth century Spanish produced map, an English
pocket globe, and the French edition of the four volume work of Alexander von Humboldt
with atlas on New Spain. Archivist Goodwin also discusses the historical background of the
pieces.
In her
continuing series on finding aids, Rodnitzky presents three synopses of recently processed
collections, including W. K. Gordon, Sr. Papers, Frances Sanger Mossiker Family Papers,
and the Maclin Robertson, Jr. Family Papers. Robertson is a descendent of Texas empresario
Sterling Clack Robertson. He married Nora Enloe who was from a Tyler County pioneer family
and the papers include genealogical materials and histories of selected areas of East
Texas.The Mossiker family likewise is associated with early Texas families, including
Alexander Sanger, an early Dallas settler and civic leader. The papers include Sanger,
Beekman and Mossiker family materials. W. K. Gordon, Sr. was a surveyor and civil engineer
who arrived in Texas in 1889 to survey a rail route. He spent sixty years with the Texas
and Pacific Coal Company in Thurber, Texas, and was instrumental in the discovery of the
Ranger oil field in 1917.
An
announcement of the forthcoming Garrett Lectures in Cartographic History to be held at UTA
on Friday, October 6, 2000. The Lectures will be followed on the 7th of October by the Texas Map Society and a joint
registration is offered.
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MAPSCO, Inc., a Dallas-based
company specializing in the creation and publishing of city maps for the past fifty years,
has designated the Virginia Garrett Cartographic History Library at The University of
Texas at Arlington as the company's archives. Goodwin reviews the company's history and
products as well as describes the historic value of the maps to researchers.
Special Collections has recently
purchased a Mexican War vintage lithograph titled, The U.S. Steam Frigate Mississippi,
Comre. M. C. Perry. The artist, Henry Walke, served as the executive officer of the
bomb brig Vesuvius of the United States Navy . He also saw service in the Civil
War. Gross describes Walke's war time accomplishments, his artistic publications, which
include the Frigate Mississippi, and the history of the ship itself.
In her continuing series on
descriptive finding aids, Archivist Rodnitzky focuses on three recent finding aids
produced by archival students in the Special Collections Division. The Atchison, Topeka,
and Santa Fe Railway Records (AR425) is a collection encompassing 18 boxes of field notes,
logbooks, and reports produced by engineers and maintenance workers dating from 1889 to
1991. The Joe O. Crawley Family Papers, 1894-1982, are a collection of personal and
business papers that reveal a unique social history of the formative years of the city of
Arlington and the university. The last collection, University of Texas at Arlington
Women's Center Records, comprises three administratively separate organizations that were
formed to meet the needs and interests of women on the UTA campus.
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![]() Typus (Orbis Universalis by Sebastian Munster published in Basil, 1550. |
n September the Summerlee Foundation of Dallas awarded the Special Collections Division a grant of $15,000 to be used toward the preservation and conservation of maps, atlases, and geographies. Specifically the award will be used to treat 40 maps most at risk in the Virginia Garrett Cartographic History Library as well as nearly 50 atlases and school geographies. In addition the grant will be used to purchase an encapsulating welder for division staff to use when encapsulating maps.
"The Summerlee Foundation award will allow UTA to target a number of the cartographic items in our holdings most in need of conservation work.," said Sally Gross, head of Special Collections. "The foundation has partnered with UTA on a number of important projects and programs in the past, and we are pleased that it has chosen to support the important work that the Virginia Garrett Library is doing in preserving the rich cartographic history of the region," commented Gerald Saxon, Associate Director of Special Collections and Branch Libraries.
Thank you Summerlee for your generous assistance!
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Special Collections
The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
Phone: (817) 272-3393 * Fax: (817) 272-3360 * E-mail:
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This page last update on Wednesday, June 25, 2003