News - The Portal to Texas History

Posted December 19th, 2014 by Dreanna Belden & filed under General.

December 19, 2014

helping historians and students …

Texas Digital Newspapers feed historical research on slavery
If you walk up to Dr. Andrew Torget at the University of North Texas and Dr. Caleb McDaniel at Rice University, ask them what they think of newspapers. These professors will start to talk to you about how they look at 19th-century newspaper issues over a series of years and use them as records for reading voting patterns or for learning about slavery in Texas. Torget, McDaniel, and their students have collaborated on extensive research on newspapers available in the Texas Digital Newspaper Program to build the Texas Runaway Ads (@TxRunawayAds) Twitter feed—displaying actual runaway slave advertisements that appeared in newspapers published between 1836 and 1860 such as the Telegraph (more)

Apply for a 2015-16 Portal to Texas History Research Fellowship

The University of North Texas Libraries invites applications for The Portal to Texas History Research Fellowship. Research using the Portal is relevant to studies in a variety of disciplines including history, journalism, political science, geography, and American studies. We encourage applicants to think creatively about the opportunities that research with large digital library collections can enable. Preference will be given to applicants that demonstrate the greatest potential for publication and the best use of The Portal to Texas History. A total of $2,000 in funding will be awarded to one or more fellowship applicants. (more)

in the news …

Local Museum gets grant money to preserve Humble Echo newspaper
The Humble Museum received a grant from the University of North Texas to preserve copies of the Humble Echo, which is no longer in publication. The university offers their “Rescuing Texas History Mini-Grants” which provide up to $1,000 of digitization services to libraries, archives, museums, (more)
The Humble Observer, 10/28/14

featured lesson plan …

Suffragettes
In the early nineteenth century, changing social conditions and the idea of equality led to the beginning of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Women were participating in reform movements and taking an increased interest in politics. Women and men began to question why women were not allowed to vote. (more)

Recently added collections …

The Sanborn Map Collection
The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History presents its collection of Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. The maps were created to estimate fire insurance risks in US cities. They are a priceless resource for historical and genealogical research as well as for planning and preservation. This collection, which includes over 10,000 maps from across Texas, dates from 1877 – 1951.

Westerner World Newspaper
Lubbock High School presents its collection of The Westerner World, the student newspaper from Tom S. Lubbock High School of Lubbock, TX. The paper was written and produced by students and includes school news and advertising. (more)

Our mailing address is:
1155 Union Circle #305190
Denton, TX 76203-5017unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences

Posted October 22nd, 2014 by Dreanna Belden & filed under General.

October 22, 2014

Helping genealogists …

Pull together a family reunion
In the fall of 2012, I discovered the Portal to Texas History at the TSGS state conference. I did a search on my grandmother’s family (Seeberger) and really hit big with the Schulenburg Sticker. I think I’m ultimately related to 30% of the families there at the turn of the 20th century. Over the last 20 years, my cousin Gus Seeberger and I kept thinking it would be nice to have a reunion but we really didn’t know any other Seeberger’s. Once I found so much on the family in the Schulenburg newspaper I had the keys for locating descendants. In about 8 months I had put together a list of over 100 descendants, and in November of 2013 my cousin and I held a reunion of Seeberger descendants with over 70 in attendance. We even had cousins from Alaska! This was a minor miracle as the last reunion of this family anyone could remember was more than 50 years ago.I also discovered that every Seeberger in the city of Houston is related but most didn’t know it. For the reunion I used the many of the newspaper items (social mentions, births, deaths, marriage announcements and family business ads) and some things from city directories and yearbooks in a Power Point presentation that was on a loop people could watch as they were arriving. The ‘clippings’ were a big hit!– Sheri Tiner

Recently added collections …

North Texas History Harvest
The North Texas History Harvest was a collaborative effort between the Denton County Office of History and Culture, the University of North Texas, and the residents of Denton County to build a digital museum of county history. Members of the community were invited to share their family photographs and documents that they felt had historical value. Each item was scanned or photographed by a team of museum officials and volunteers and then returned to its owner. The digitized images were added to the Portal to Texas History to be freely available to everyone. The collection spans a century of history and includes a variety of photographs of groups, residents, and places in Denton County from all walks of life.

The Albany News
The Albany News, located in the small West Texas town of Albany in Shackelford County, was established as the Frontier Echo in Jacksboro (Young County) in 1875 by H.H. McConnell. Captain George W. Robson bought the Echo in 1878 and relocated to Fort Griffin in nearby Shackelford County. Griffin was a rowdy, bustling settlement that grew up around a military fort established in 1867, attracting buffalo hide hunters and cattlemen driving herds up the Western Cattle Trail. Just a few years later, Robson moved again when the more sedate town of Albany became the county seat of Shackelford County, and the Fort Griffin Echo became the Albany Echo. … (more)

The Greensheet
Helen Gordon began publishing the Greensheet in a small office at Kirby and the Southwest Freeway in Houston in 1970. Printing classified and business ads for local buyers, sellers, and businesses, Gordon grew the paper and opened an office in Dallas in 1977 and one in Austin in 1978 in spite of strong resistance from Texas’ male-dominated business networks. The Greensheet is a family-owned business and is known for its non-profit endeavors such as The Greensheet Education Foundation (more)

Dallas County Probate Records
Presented by the Dallas Genealogical Society, the Dallas County Probate Records Collection features records from cases that occurred between 1846 through the early 1900’s. The cases in this collection included both guardianship, involving children or others who were unable to manage their own affairs, and lunacy, involving people who were mentally incompetent due to insanity or senility.

The paper records were transferred to microfilm by a group of volunteers with the Dallas Genealogical Society in 1977. The records contain the names of family members, birth dates, residences, estate inventories, land records, and relationships, information that is essential to genealogists and other researchers.

An investment in The Portal to Texas History is an investment in the future of Texas. Please support the Portal and its 280 partners as we bring Texas history and culture to the world.

from the UNT Digital Library

Save the Date! On November 6, 2014, the UNT Libraries and The Portal to Texas History will be celebrating a major milestone with 2.5 million newspaper pagesavailable online through the Portal. Please plan on joining our celebration in Denton:When: November 6, 2014, 3:00 – 4:30 pm.
Where: The Forum in Willis Library
1506 Highland St, Denton, Texas

Our mailing address is:
1155 Union Circle #305190
Denton, TX 76203-5017unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences

Posted October 8th, 2014 by Ana Krahmer & filed under General.

As the Texas Digital Newspaper Program prepares to celebrate 2.5 million pages on November 6, 2014, we welcome multiple new grant awardees and newspaper titles!

The Polk County Enterprise: The county seat, Livingston, Texas, has received a grant to digitize its newspaper, beginning in 1892 and moving up to 1965. This span of years will represent such famous historic figures from Polk County, including former governor of Texas, William P. Hobby, after whom the Houston Hobby International Airport was named.
The Carl and Mary Welhausen Public Library has received a grant to digitize multiple newspaper titles representing Yoakum, Texas, and DeWitt and Lavaca Counties. Yoakum is also known as the Leather Capital of Texas and the Hub City of South Texas!
The Cleveland Journal & Illustrated Paper Boy emerge from Cleveland, Texas, and are being digitized by the Austin Memorial Library. Cleveland’s first structure was a church built in 1854, around which later settlement began in the 1870s. In addition, the Illustrated Paper Boy is one of the more unique titles we’ve run across in Texas newspapers.
Refugio, Texas, is the home of the Dennis M. O’Connor Public Library, which has received a grant to digitize many of its county newspaper titles. Refugio, Texas, is near the coast, and it is the birthplace of famed Texas Rangers pitcher, Nolan Ryan.
The Mercedes New Tribune and the Mercedes Enterprise will be digitized through a grant received by the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library. Located in the Rio Grande Valley, Mercedes is the home town of Tejano music singer Elida Reyna, whose family moved to the community when she was eight years old, and who won the Latin Grammy Award in 2010.

We wish to thank all of the libraries who have contributed to historical preservation in Texas through their hard work in preserving and making these newspapers accessible to the public via the Texas Digital Newspaper Program.

Posted September 24th, 2014 by Dreanna Belden & filed under General.

September 24, 2014

Recently added collections …

The Hallettsville Rebel
“The great appear great to us only because we are on our knees, LET US ARISE!” shouts the slogan of the Hallettsville Rebel, once the state paper of the Socialist Party in Texas. Edward Otto Meitzen, a German immigrant who left that country and the repression which followed the failed revolutions of 1848 first published the Rebel with his sons in 1911. The paper’s boisterous attacks on corrupt politicians, corporate farms, and greedy landlords proved popular among the poor tenant farmers but infuriated those it targeted. During his tenure Meitzen survived several assaults in addition to a being shot by a sheriff accused of corruption. (more)

LGBT Collections
The LGBT Collections include photographs, newspapers and other publications, letters, posters, and more from over 40 years of gay rights activism in Texas, many from the Resource Center LGBT Collection. This growing collection features photographs of the Texas participants of the October 14, 1979 March on Washington and Gay Pride parades in Dallas as well as issues of the Dallas Voice, a newspaper for the gay community in Dallas that was first published in 1984.

Hardin-Simmons Photography Collection
When Hardin-Simmons University opened in 1892 sixty students enrolled at the small college in the fledgling town of Abilene. At that time it was called Abilene Baptist College as it had been founded by the Sweetwater Baptist Association and a group of cattlemen and pastors who wanted to bring Christian higher education to the west. Renamed Simmons College for the New York preacher whose financial support allowed the first campus building to be completed the college grew and expanded.

The college’s name changed again when it became a University in 1925, but struggled financially during the Great Depression. With help from John and Mary Hardin the university attained long-term financial stability and its current name in 1934. The Hardin-Simmons Photography Collectionspans the history of the university with images of the buildings, students, faculty, and campus life captured over the last 122 years.

Fraternity
The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History presents Fraternity, a publication of the United Benevolent Society of Fort Worth. The Society was a non-profit organization organized through a lodge system that was dedicated to cooperation for mutual benefit and carrying out social, intellectual, charitable, and patriotic activities.

An investment in The Portal to Texas History is an investment in the future of Texas. Please support the Portal and its 280 partners as we bring Texas history and culture to the world.

from the UNT Digital Library

Save the Date! On November 6, 2014, the UNT Libraries and The Portal to Texas History will be celebrating a major milestone with 2.5 million newspaper pagesavailable online through the Portal. Please plan on joining our celebration in Denton:When: November 6, 2014, 3:00 – 4:30 pm.
Where: The Forum in Willis Library
1506 Highland St, Denton, Texas

Our mailing address is:
1155 Union Circle #305190
Denton, TX 76203-5017unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences

Posted September 10th, 2014 by Dreanna Belden & filed under General.

September 10, 2014

Texas Digital Newspaper Program: Two Million Pages Preserved
Recently, the Texas Digital Newspaper Program (TDNP) reached two million pages of Texas newspapers on The Portal to Texas History. Made digitally available from microfilm, physical pages, and PDF e-print editions (more)

featured Collections …

The Canyon City News
The city of Canyon was founded by rancher Lincoln Guy Conner in 1889. He had previously surveyed and settled the area, building a dugout for his home in 1887. When the town was founded two years later the dugout became the general store and post office as well. Randall County was organized later that year with Canyon as the county seat.The Stayer was one of severalnewspapers that served the town in its early years. When R. W. Morgan began publishing it in 1896 the paper was primarily focused on stock-raising. It was renamed the Canyon City News by George A. Brandon in 1903 and began to shift its focus to local, state, and national news. It was sold to Charles Keiser and renamed the Randall County News in 1908. That paper continued until 1926.

C.F. McCann CCC Collection
During the Great Depression Connie Ford McCann worked as a company clerk with the Civilian Conservation Corps in Pineland, Texas. While he served two six-month tours with the Corps as they worked developing what would become Texas’ National Forests, Connie documented life in the camp with photography and his own personal diary. View collection.

The Abilene Reporter
The Abilene Reporter had only been printing for two months when a fire destroyed the office of its owner Charles Gilbert. Undeterred, Gilbert rode the train twenty miles to a neighboring town to borrow their printing press and produce an edition on the fire. The year was 1881 and the city of Abilene had been founded only a few months earlier. The paper is the oldest continuous business in Abilene, and this collection includes over 7,000 issues of the paper.

in the News …

UNT receives grant to digitize 16 years of Dallas Voice
University of North Texas announced it has received a $19,915 grant to digitize all copies of Dallas Voice from its inception in 1984 through 1999. Copies of the paper from March 2004 (more)
Dallas Voice, August 27, 2014.

from the UNT Digital Library

Congressional Research Service Reports

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) does not provide direct public access to its reports, requiring citizens to request them from their Members of Congress. Some Members, as well as several non-profit groups, have posted the reports on their web sites. UNT collects and provides access to 15,000 of these reports, and they have been used nearly a million times by the public. You can find research on Changes in the Arctic, Airline Passenger Screening, Net Neutrality, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.