DENTON, Texas (UNT) — The University of North Texas Libraries is asking for the public’s help to receive a $500,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Over the next five years, the university is tasked with raising $1.5 million – funds that would expand an endowment for the library’s most popular resource: the Portal to Texas History website. Donate here. more…

Tarrant County College District Archives contributes digital copies of materials that document local and state history.The Heritage Room and District Archives was officially established in 2010 but their origins date back to the mid-1970s, with the Heritage Room opening in 1975. With emphasis on the cultural heritage of Tarrant County and North Texas, they have approximately 8,000 items. more…

The Palestine Public Library materials include local history photographs selected for the grant Rescuing Texas History through the digitization of at-Risk photographs and maps, as well as photos taken during a Historic Resources Study in 1991. more…

The Moore Memorial Public Library materials include local history materials selected for the grant Rescuing Texas History through the Digitization of At-Risk Photographs and Maps. Images include photographs of the 1st Aero Squadron in Texas City from 1913-15, and of the Texas City Disaster of 1947.more…

Texas Southern University features more than 200 photographs from the Barbara C. Jordan Archives. Barbara Jordan ran for the Texas House twice, in 1962 and 1964. She then ran for the Texas Senate in 1966, winning a seat and becoming the first African American since Reconstruction to serve in the Texas State Senate … (more)

The T. B. Willis Photograph Collection comes from the private collection of T. B. Willis. It includes 648 historical photographs with albums, documents, and historical items from the Willis family and extended relatives who settled in Waco, Texas in the 19th century…more

The Jacob Fontaine Religious Museum provides materials that represent the history of African American churches in the Austin area and have contributed to the Rescuing Texas History, 2006 and Building the African-American Community collections. The museum is named for Jacob Fontaine, a slave preacher who founded thirteen Baptist churches in Travis County. Mainly consisting of photographs, the items date from 1898 to 2006. He established several churches, a newspaper (the Gold Dollar), taught school, and established a grocery store and laundry. The collection includes photographs of church parishioners, families, students, weddings, church groups, and more from Austin’s African-American community… (more)

Sunday Gazetteer

Donna Hunt used The Portal to Texas History as a resource to locate information or the newspapers on Bredette C. Murray when he was publisher of his “Sunday Gazetteer” newspaper back in 1910 and 1911 … (more)

Texas Cultures Online features local history materials from seventeen institutions depicting the diverse cultures of Texas during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Funding for this collection was provided by the Amon Carter Foundation…more

The T. B. Willis Photograph Collection comes from the private collection of T. B. Willis. It includes 648 historical photographs with albums, documents, and historical items from the Willis family and extended relatives who settled in Waco, Texas in the 19th century

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The Richardson and Smith libraries contain approximately 400,000 items. In addition, the resources of the Internet, remote library catalogs, and more than 100 databases are available to the researcher. Highlights of the special collections include Texana, Fine Printing, and nineteenth and twentieth century classics. Hardin-Simmons University is a member of the AMIGOS Bibliographic Council and a founding member of the Abilene Library Consortium…more

Thanks to another $1,000 grant awarded to the museum, more copies of The Humble Echo are currently on their way to UNT for further digitizing, and will join the other copies of the newspaper online for anyone to read them for free at the Portal to Texas History. The university offers their “Rescuing Texas History Mini-Grants” which provide digitization services to libraries, archives, museums etc. Already digitized papers include the earliest versions of the Humble Echo released in June of 1942…more

Located in Abilene, Texas, the 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum serves as a display and teaching museum for the study of World War II. Pictured is a formation of Frenchsoldiers at an American cemetery in France…(more)

The Private Collection of Joe E. Haynes includes family photographs, as well as a fascinating array of vintage postcards covering every holiday and locations around Texas and beyond… (more)

Harvest  Costumes from the 1930s and 40s

Textile Ranger is a blogger who focuses on nature and textile and she chose to shine light on The Portal to Texas History’s Weslaco Collection. Textile Ranger featured photos from The Portal like the sailor uniform pictured which is made of grapefruit peels. She writes “In this season of harvest, I bring you some creative costumes from the bountiful Rio Grande Valley of Texas. They were made in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, for the annual Birthday Party in Weslaco, Texas. To promote the region’s agricultural products, each costume had to be made from fruits and vegetables”…(more)

The Log Cabin Village collections feature 19th century photographs of the Tompkins, Parks, Howard, and Foster families, including tintypes and daguerreotypes. Two letter collections include correspondence between the Parks and Howard families dating from 1840 to 1940. Where the West Begins: Capturing Fort Worth’s Historic Treasures is the name of this collection. The contributing partners include the UNT Libraries, Fort Worth Public Library, Texas Christian University, the Amon Carter Museum, the University of Texas at Arlington, Beth-El Congregation Archives, Tarrant County College NE, Log Cabin Village, Cattle Raisers Museum, Lockheed Martin Archives, Archives of the Central Texas Conference United Methodist Church, Dallas Public Library, University of Houston, and the Cowtown Coliseum…more