Posted by & filed under General.

Portal Table at TSHA 2024

The Portal to Texas History was thrilled to attend 128th Annual Meeting for the Texas State Historical Association in College Station this past week. The Portal was able to attend thanks to the Cathy Nelson Hartman Portal to Texas History Endowment.

Few things make me feel better about the work I do than having many of the 400+ registrants come by the Portal booth and share how great they think the Portal is and tell me ways in which they use it for their research. 

Posted by & filed under Events, General.

 

The Portal to Texas History recently reached two million items online, and we invite you to join us to celebrate this milestone at the Willis Library on UNT Campus!

When: February 15, 2024, 3-4 pm. 
Where: Willis Library, Room 250H on the second floor; 1506 Highland Street, Denton TX. 
Parking: Several parking options are available, including the nearby Highland Street Parking Garage

Willis Library Arbor

Posted by & filed under Featured, General, Research Fellowships.

The University of North Texas Libraries is excited to invite applications for 2024 Research Fellowships in The Portal to Texas History and UNT Special Collections.  The Fellowships are aimed at covering the associated expenses with conducting research and producing scholarship using UNT Libraries’ Digital Collections, including The Portal to Texas History and the UNT Digital Library, as well as collections from UNT Special Collections.  Up to $2000 will be awarded to two or more Portal to Texas History Research Fellows and up to $1000 will be awarded to four UNT Special Collections Research Fellows.  Applications are due February 15, 2024.

More information can be found here.  

Posted by & filed under General, Quick Tips, Texas Digital Newspaper Program.

We’re excited to announce a new tool you might find useful for working with newspaper titles on The Portal to Texas History!

This tool is a curated title database, which allows you to see how many years, issues, and pages of a serial publication we have available on the Portal.

To access the curated title database, you can go directly to it through the “Explore by” dropdown menu, located beneath the large search box, on the Portal home page. When you choose “Publication Title,” you’ll be taken to a display listing all titles on the Portal.

From the title listing page, if you click on the green “All Curated Titles” box, in the upper, right-hand corner of the screen, you’ll be able to go to the curated title database.

From there, you can use the “Filter Titles” search box in the left-hand column to locate an individual serial title, where you’ll see the number of years, issues, or pages we have uploaded to the Portal so far. 

In the example below, you’ll find the listing for the San Antonio Light, a newspaper digitized through the National Digital Newspaper Program, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The curated titles database is especially useful when you want to see numbers of years available, title changes by year, for example above when the Light removed “The” from its title. The database is also helpful for investigating other serial items on the Portal. 

 

Posted by & filed under General.

As we approach the 60th commemoration of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his life and legacy have not lost their hold on the imagination of the American public. His famous quotes such as “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” and “We choose to go to the moon,” remain on the tongues of our citizens, calling us to a higher vision of what it means to be an American.

 

The University of North Texas Libraries’ Portal to Texas History provides free online access to several archival collections that document the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Below are some collections to explore, learn, and understand more about the JFK assassination, and this dark moment in our nation’s history.

 

We pulled these resources together to support the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNT’s (OLLI) seven-part series for JFK 60| The Assassination 60 Years Later, which was sponsored by both the UNT Libraries and the Cathy Nelson Hartman Portal to Texas History Endowment. A UNT Libraries Advocacy Board member, Dory Wiley, is hosting, planning, and speaking at these events. In addition to his career in finance and investment, Dory is widely considered an expert on the JFK assassination and has organized dozens of seminars for over a decade on the subject, drawing together eyewitnesses and experts to share their perspectives. This year’s sessions are all being recorded, and will soon be hosted in the Portal to Texas History for posterity. Download our JFK Resource Flyer_F23

 

Dory Wiley, President and CEO of Commerce Street Capitol

 

 

 

Collection: Dallas Times Herald John F. Kennedy Photos

Partner: The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/DTHJFK

The Dallas Times Herald’s collection contains negatives of approximately 700 black-and white news images taken by photographers over the assassination weekend and beyond. It includes many unique and crucial images, and though only a few of these historic scenes were published by the Times Herald in 1963, they are a powerful visual record of President Kennedy’s last hours in Fort Worth and Dallas, including the motorcade, assassination aftermath, and investigations.

 

Collection: John F. Kennedy, Dallas Police Department Collection

Partner: Dallas Municipal Archives

texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/JFKDP

The John F. Kennedy/Dallas Police Department Collection contains the entirety of

the department’s investigation into the assassination. There are nearly 11,000 pages of affadavits, interviews, and evidence, along with 404 photographs that document the scenes associated with this moment in our nation’s history.

 

 

Collection: John F. Kennedy Memorial Collection

Partner: Eleven partners

texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/JFKAM

This collection contains newspapers, correspondence, legal documents, police reports, photographs, and video footage documenting the weekend of President Kennedy’s assassination as well as the subsequent investigations into both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby.

 

Collection: Jack Ruby Trial Transcripts

Partner: The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

bit.ly/ptth-jfk-jack-ruby

This group of materials features 39 published transcripts arising from the Jack Ruby trial, where he was convicted of “murder with malice” in the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

Collection: Jim Marrs Collection

Partner: UNT Libraries Special Collections Department

texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/MARRS

Personal notes, writings and correspondence, articles, publications, photographs, slides, videos, audio recordings, books and posters resulting from journalist and author (Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy) Jim Marrs’ career and research. Marrs specialized in reporting on conspiracy theories and government cover-ups.

 

Collection: Charles Reagan Papers

Partner: UNT Libraries Special Collections Department

texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/CERP

The physical collection contains the research of Charles E. Reagan, Jr., who was working on a book about John F. Kennedy and the era surrounding his presidency. Items include his hand-written notes and manuscript on notepads, printed articles, magazines and newspapers featuring Kennedy, and typed manuscript pages.

 

WFAA John F. Kennedy Assassination Audio Tapes Collection

Partner: UNT Libraries Special Collections Department

https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/WFAAJFK

This collection comprises 32 reel-to-reel tapes in individual cases that document the events and people surrounding the Kennedy Assassination. The tapes cover the events and commentary related to the Kennedy Assassination. News outlet commentary, President Johnson’s speech, interviews with Lee Harvey Oswald and his family members, coverage of the Ruby hearing, trial, and interviews are all included in this collection.

 

Collection: Judge Sarah T. Hughes Collection

Partner: UNT Libraries Special Collections Department

texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/SARAH 

Sarah Tilghman Hughes (1896-1985) practiced law in Dallas, and was the first woman to serve as a federal district judge in Texas (1961-1975; senior status until 1982), and championed various human and women’s rights causes. Notably, as a federal district judge, Hughes administered the presidential oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963.