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Special Collections in 2023: 3rd Quarterly Review

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by Sara Pezzoni

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The purpose of The Compass Rose is to raise awareness of Special Collections' resources and to foster the use of these resources. The blog series also reports significant new programs, initiatives, and acquisitions of Special Collections. 

This is the newest in an ongoing series spotlighting new acquisitions and reproductions of our content. For more on our previous featured material, read our previously published Quarterly Review blogs.

Special Collections is continually acquiring new materials and image reproductions of items from our collections are regularly used in new publications and by media outlets. This post reviews where and how materials from our collections are being used around the world in July, August, and September of 2023.

Acquisitions of Printed Materials

Alonso de León Letter

This quarter we received a donation of a three-page manuscript letter written in Spanish by Alonso de León of Coahuila, Mexico, dated 19 Mayo 1689, to Padre Juan del Rincón, "Descubrimiento de la Bahia del Espíritu Santo en el Ceno Mexicano en el de 1689 años," which translates in English to "Discovery of the Bay of Espiritu Santo in the Seno Mexicano (Gulf of Mexico) in the year 1689." In this extraordinary letter, Spanish pioneer and explorer Alonso de León describes his discovery of the remains of the failed colony established by the French explorer La Salle off Matagorda Bay on the coast of Texas. The letter includes amazing details about the colony and the peoples involved, both French and indigenous. This item ranks as arguably one of the most important pieces in Special Collections. It is accompanied by a transcription and a translation by UTA Professor Dr. Sonia Kania. Gift of Wesley A. Brown of Denver, Colorado.

Franke Map & Print Donations

This quarter, we acquired a multitude of maps and prints from donor Dr. Jack Franke.

Maps donated by Dr. Franke:

  • Pieter van der Aa and Pieter de Marees, Het Koninkryk van Guinea of Afrikaanse Goud-Kust del Mina, engraving with applied color on paper, 1720-1729
  • Nicolas Bellin, Il Paese degli Ottentotti ne’ Contorni del Capo di Buona Speranza, engraving on paper, 1781
  • Carta della Costa Orientale di Affrica dal Capo di Buona Speranza sino al Capo del Gada
  • Lapie and Tardieu, Carte d'Afrique, 1854 
  • Lapie and Tardieu, Carte des Etats-Unis du Mexique, 1854 
  • Handtke and Hubner, Afrika 
  • Carl Flemming, Senegambien, Sudan and Guinea 
  • Edward Stanford et al., A Map of the Nile, from the Equatorial Lakes to the Mediterranean, Embracing the Eastern Sudan (Kordofan, Darfur &c.) and Abyssinia, with the Surveys and Explorations of Emin, Junker, Stanley, &c. (London: Stanford's Geographical Establishment, 1896) 
  • Ron Rice, East Texas [Pictorial Map] (Longview, Texas: East Texas Chamber of Commerce, 1966)

Prints donated by Dr. Franke:

  • Melton Prior, The Zulu War: The Burning of Ulundi [from The London Illustrated News, Aug. 23, 1879, pages 172-173, 184-185]
  • Schonberg, The Zulu War: The Battle of Ulundi [Extra Supplement to The Illustrated London News, Aug. 9, 1879]
  • Melton Prior and Richard Caton Woodville, The Zulu War -- Battle of Ulundi: Final Rush of the Zulus -- British Square in the Distance [Extra Supplement to The Illustrated London News, 1879]

Maps from the Ted W. Mayborn Collection

Ted W. Mayborn (1909-1996) was a wealthy petroleum trade journal publisher, writer, and Texas history aficionado. Mayborn was an avid collector and donated his collection of historical literature, maps, and memorabilia to UTA Special Collections in 1989. This quarter, we accessioned 332 maps from the Mayborn collection, mostly from Atlases, that were transferred to the general map collection, including:

  • Map of Persia, Turkey in Asia, Afghanistan, Beloochistan (New York: S. Augustus Mitchell, 1872)
  • Johnson's Hindoostan and Farther India (New York: A.J. Johnson, 1867)
  • Map of China, from The Illustrated London News (1888)
  • Russia in Europe (Philadelphia: Henry S. Tanner, 1845)
  • Russia in Asia and Tartary (Philadelphia: Henry S. Tanner, 1845)
  • Map of Granada, Venezuela, and Guiana / Map of Peru, and Ecuador / Map of the Argentine Confederation (Philadelphia: Henry S. Tanner, 1860)
  • Chili, Paraguay, The Argentine Confederation, and Uruguay [verso:] Europe (Philadelphia: Henry S. Tanner, 1871)
  • Johnson's Japan: Nippon, Kiusiu, Sikok, Yesso and the Japanese Kurlies (New York: A. J. Johnson, ca. 1860s)
  • J. B. Wolters, De Havenwerken van Rotterdam / De Havenwerken van Amsterdam / Ijmuiden (Groningen, Netherlands, ca. 1880-1899)
  • Jose Rodriguez, Plano Oficial de la Ciudad de La Paz (1959)

Kino's Map of California

James Hulett after Francis Eusebio Kino, A Passage by Land to California Discovered by ye Rev. Fathr. Eusebius Francis Kino, Jesuite between ye Years 1698 & 1701, engraving on paper, includes 7-page text article (London, 1721). Gift of Dr. Dennis Reinhartz.

Jesuit Father Francis Eusebio Kino walked from Sonora to Baja California, in part to disprove the long-standing cartographic myth that California was an island. This version of Kino’s map, donated by UTA Professor Emeritus Dennis Reinhartz, is quite rare, and its accession gives us a third – the first published in French in 1705 in a Jesuit journal and a second, another English version from John Lockman’s Travels of the Jesuits, published in 1743. 

Newly Processed Archival Materials

Dr. Beth Haller Papers

The Dr. Beth Haller Papers, one of our recently processed collections, contains letters and publications that connect researchers to disability history. Of particular note are publications about Kaleidescope, a television channel that was created to make media more accessible to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing population, as well as those with visual disabilities. Kaleidescope provided early forms of audio description and closed captioning to its audience, helping to pave the way for media that was accessible and enjoyable for all.

Mary Kemp Parker County, Texas, History Collection

From photos of local ranches to newspaper clippings about local tragedies, the Mary Kemp Parker County, Texas, History Collection provides a brief glimpse into Parker County. Mary E. Kemp is a respected Parker County historian, author of several books on Parker County historical topics, founder of the Abandoned Cemetery Association, former member of the Parker County Historical Commission, and organizer and hostess of the Shaw-Kemp Open House. This collection is comprised of photographs, newspaper clippings, scrapbook pages and printed materials relating to the history of Weatherford and Parker County, Texas. Of particular note within this collection are photographs of small local businesses, which are quite rare in historical records.

New TARO Finding Aids

TARO (Texas Archival Resources Online) makes descriptions, or "finding aids," of the rich archival collections in repositories across the state available to the public. Finding aids assist users in locating information in our collections and serve as a descriptive guide to the unique materials only available here in Special Collections. Here are our most recent finding aid uploads to TARO:

University Archives

Texas Disability History Collection

Texas Labor Archives

Historical Manuscripts Collection

Texas Political History Collection

Photographs Collection

SPCO Class Visits

Students from a variety of classes and organizations visit Special Collections to engage in experiential learning activities using our unique materials. Visits this quarter have included History, Gender & Women’s Studies, Mexican-American Studies, Art History, and a summer camp with K-12 students from the Arlington community. Pictured below are a few examples from class instruction over the past few months.

Young students studying maps and other items in Special Collections.

Students from the K-12 Summer Camp look at historic maps in Special Collections.

Students studying materials around a table in Special Collections.

Students from Dr. Alberto Ortiz-Diaz’s Historical Research Methods (HIST3300) learn the basics of historical research and inquiry.

UTA Libraries welcomed kids from Arlington for summer camp. On the first day, students visited Special Collections to learn how to identify parts of a map. Each student worked in groups to find different map elements – ranging from rivers and lakes to a compass rose or title – as part of a scavenger hunt. After viewing historical maps from Special Collections and completing their activity, the students created their own fantasy maps with the elements they had just sought out. The kids really enjoyed their time looking at maps that were hundreds of years older than they were!

Each semester, Special Collections welcomes multiple sections of HIST3300 – Historical Research Methods. In Dr. Ortiz-Diaz's section this Fall, the students visited twice. In their first visit, students viewed a wide range of materials from Special Collections in a quick overview tour we like to call "Special Collections' Greatest Hits." From a page of the Nuremberg Chronicle to correspondence between the AFL-CIO and John F. Kennedy, this tour really runs the gambit of what our materials have to offer. To wrap up day one, students engage in our Document Analysis workshop, where they analyze a primary source from our collection. This activity teaches basic historical inquiry and critical thinking skills, while also helping the students feel comfortable conducting research. In their second visit (pictured above), students engaged in more in-depth research with materials they requested. As they work towards the end goal of the class – writing a historical research paper – this research trip allowed them to begin assessing primary sources they might want to analyze. We’ve definitely got some budding historians in the group!

Events

The Office of Transition Programs & Services hosted its third annual First-Generation College Student Brunch & Alumni Mixer on August 26. Special Collections was invited to showcase university history at the event, and our team filled four tables with artifacts, newsletters, photographs, yearbooks, pins, and other UTA-related memorabilia!

Image Reproduction Highlights

Materials found within Special Collections’ holdings have been used across a wide variety of outlets, including (but not limited to) features in local news stories, on television shows, printed in publications, and used in public exhibitions. Below are some examples of where and how our materials have been used this quarter.

Local News

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram collection, which came in increments to UTA Libraries from 1984 to 2022, is often used in a variety of news articles and columns published by the original donor, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. This quarter, the Star-Telegram used photographs from the collection for 11 stories: 

Photographs from the collection were also used in 9 photo features:

Other local news outlets published the following stories using our collection materials: 

Printed Materials

Film/Television

  • Episode for Dark Side of the Ring (Season 4: Episode 2), VICE TV, aired June 6, 2023; image used from the Cirrus Bonneau and Ana Beaulac Photograph Collection

Exhibitions and Displays

  • Traveling exhibit, “Black Cowboys: An American Story,” curated by the Witte Museum, on display at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum (September 2023-January 2024); images used from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection and Jenkins Garrett Texas Postcard Collection 
  • Temporary exhibit, "Cowtown Takes Flight," Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, August 19, 2023-August 31, 2024; images used from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection; the W. D. Smith Commercial Photography, Inc. Collection; the Squire Haskins Photography, Inc. Collection;  the Montfort, Sawtelle, and Gilbert Families Papers; the Amon Carter Photograph Collection; the Meacham-Carter Papers; the Aviation Photographs Collection; the PATCO Records for the DFW Tower Group; and the Keith Kahle Papers
  • Permanent exhibit, "Hall of Presidents" in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World (Lake Buena Vista, FL); image of George W. Bush used from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection
  • Temporary exhibit, "Forest Forward: The Future Is Here" by Forest Forward, on display at NorthPark Center’s “NorthCourt,” (Dallas, TX), September 14-Oct. 17, 2023; image used from the Squire Haskins Photography, Inc. Collection
  • Traveling exhibit, "Mumentous," curated by Amy J. Schultz, on display at the Grapevine Tower Gallery, September 23-October 14, 2023; images used from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, the UTA Photograph Collection, and the UTA News Service Photograph Collection
  • Public presentation, "If Walls Could Talk: 100 Years at Lily B. Clayton," presented by Debra Nyul for a Junior League of Fort Worth meeting on September 25, 2023; images used from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection and the Gracious Ladies Research Collection

Visit The Compass Rose in December for our next quarterly blog review! 

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