Jazz-Age Boomtown, a recent publication by Jerry and Shirley Rodnitzky, brings Basil Clemons’ 1920s photographs to a wider audience. The collection of approximately 18,000 negatives and photographs of Breckenridge, Texas, 1919-1948, has been part of the Special Collections Division since their 1985 purchase with a grant from Vicki Vinson Cantwell of Fort Worth. Shirley made the Clemons collection a standard dinner topic and this inspired the collaboration by the Rodnitzkys. The unique images impressed her from the moment she started processing them, and she hoped that someone would one day use them in a history of Breckenridge or a biography of the eccentric West Texas photographer. Although the photos were used for genealogical research and to illustrate an occasional article or exhibit, they remained virtually unnoticed and unappreciated outside the UTA Libraries.

In 1992, after looking over the collection at length and doing some preliminary research on Breckenridge, Jerry considered writing a photo-essay history based on the early Clemons photographs. He felt that the photographs revealed Breckenridge as a microcosm of American popular culture in the 1920s. He then outlined the text and searched for more information about Breckenridge, Texas, and Basil Clemons. Shirley searched Special Collections holdings for information and selected likely photographs for reproduction to match the various chapters. Together they worked on captions and refined the text that Jerry had written. The finished product was accepted by Texas A & M University Press for publication in the Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Texas Photography Series. Texas A & M was the first press contacted because of the high quality of previous Prothro photo books, such as Equal before the Lens by Barbara McCandless.

Clemons' own cutline reads, "Down In Breckenridge, Texas Where Horses Ride in Fords."

Jazz-Age Boomtown is primarily a photographic essay about a West Texas oil boomtown. It is neither a biography of Basil Clemons nor a history of Breckenridge, Texas. On a larger scale, however, the book is a photographic record of the cultural roots of modern America. Whatever dates mark the beginning of recent or contemporary America, most historians would agree that modern American culture began after World War I and took shape in the 1920s. The twenties featured such modern cultural fare as widespread auto ownership, big-time sports, and the first mesmerizing mass media--radio and cinema. Basil Clemons never saw himself as the photographer of modern American culture, but that is what he became for the authors. His photographs will remain American--and Texas--treasures, because they so vividly captured that formative modern, national, Jazz-Age culture.

Basil Clemons, the town’s only professional photographer and most eccentric resident, traveled to California, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska before returning to Texas in 1919 where he had followed the oil boom to Breckenridge. He photographed not only the oil fields but also many other aspects of the boom--views of main streets, fires, floods, the circus, movie theaters, sporting events, schools, ranches, shops, and restaurants--capturing the essence of the boomtown atmosphere including not only the permanent residents but the visitors and drifters who came with the boom and left when the oil ran out. One hundred photographs are reproduced in the text; a small fraction of the hundreds of striking photographs that comprise the collection. In June 1997, the book was published. The authors hope that it brings well deserved fame to Basil Clemons and his work.

Elephant trainer performing a trick with one of his 'students."

Both the acquisition of the photographs and the publication of this book were enthusiastically supported by Jenkins Garrett. Jazz-Age Boomtown is available in paperback for $19.95, and can be ordered directly from Texas A & M University Press, Drawer C, College Station, Texas, 77843-4354. It is also available at the UTA Bookstore and local bookstore chains.

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This page last update on Wednesday, June 25, 2003