News from the DeGolyer Library
March 2021
Southern Methodist University
|
|
Our Latest Virtual Exhibit |
|
Fossils to Film brings together highlights from libraries and special collections across campus, including the DeGolyer Library's collections.
This virtual exhibit features a number of DeGolyer Library items currently on display at the Meadows Museum. Explore the items here, and from March 14th to June 20th, 2021, visit the Meadows Museum to view over 100 works of art, specimens, historical documents, and artifacts, many of which are exhibited outside of their home departments for the first time.
|
|
During her memorial service held at Highland Park United Methodist Church, Provost Morgan was held up as a woman of faith and family, scholar, leader of Dallas women’s associations and national political science organizations, innovator, friend, skilled administrator, and a steadying hand at SMU after the “death penalty” imposed by the 1980s football scandals. While processing her papers in the SMU Archives and as I read her speeches to the Faculty Senate while she was Provost, I admired her intelligence, her understanding of human relations, and her strength of character. She believed in SMU students, in SMU faculty as teachers and scholars, and in the DeGolyer Library’s mission to preserve primary materials for researchers to discover, to investigate, and to interpret. For all of these accomplishments, we are grateful for Ruth P. Morgan.
Joan Gosnell
University Archivist
|
|
|
|
Celebrating International Women's Day and the W |
Archives of Women of the Southwest curator Samantha Dodd marked International Women's Day by examining the creation of the annual Women's Symposium at SMU.
The first women's symposium was established in 1966 by Dean of Women Emmie V. Baine, and investigated the role of women in society. The symposium has since grown into an annual exploration of topics ranging from leadership to sexuality to politics.
|
|
Remembering Dorothy Sloan |
All book lovers will be saddened to learn that renowned bookseller Dorothy Sloan (1943-2021) died on March 14 after battling Alzheimer’s. A fifth-generation Texan, Dorothy was born and raised in Houston. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies at the University of Texas in Austin, graduating with high honors. Dorothy then moved to San Francisco, where she fell headlong in love with rare books—a passion that remained paramount for the rest of her life. |
|
|
In 1984 she established her own firm, Dorothy Sloan Rare Books, a challenging endeavor in a trade dominated by men. Never one to be limited by others’ expectations, Dorothy applied herself ceaselessly. Thanks largely to her unparalleled scholarship, persistence, and ethics, she rose to become one of the leading lights of the rare book trade in the United States and beyond.
Over the next thirty-six years, she handled many incredible items, from magnificent imperial folio Audubon prints to, not one, but two complete collections of the elusive Zamorano 80, along with many other invaluable materials, from manuscripts and artworks to countless maps, many of them seminal and groundbreaking. The DeGolyer Library, like many other individual and institutional collectors, benefited greatly from her offerings and expertise.
|
|
Although we mourn Dorothy’s passing, we are honored to announce that her legacy will live on through her incomparable catalogues and her website, which will be archived with her papers here at the DeGolyer Library, where they will be preserved and made available to the rare book community. Memorial gifts may be made to the Dorothy Sloan Fellowship Fund at the DeGolyer Library, SMU. A generous anonymous donor will match contributions 2:1 up to $10,000. Proceeds from this fund will be used to support visiting scholars at any stage of their careers who plan to pursue research on bibliographical projects or women’s history at the DeGolyer Library. Donors may send checks to the DeGolyer Library, Box 750396, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275. Please add “Sloan Fund” to the memo line. For more information, contact us at degolyer@smu.edu. Contributions are fully tax deductible.
Jasmine Star and Russell L. Martin III
|
|
|
|
Researching Larry McMurtry at the DeGolyer |
In her latest blog post, Cynthia Franco looked at the life and legacy of Larry McMurtry, who passed away in late March. The DeGolyer Library is home to a collection of personal letters from the author and Archer City bookseller, found in both our Franklin Gilliam and John Holmes Jenkins collections. You can view books and essays by the self-identified 'minor regional novelist' or explore the Larry McMurtry in Film collection.
|
|
On April 5th at 4:00 p.m., join SMU’s History Department, SMU Archives, and the Norwick Center for Digital Solutions at SMU Libraries to learn more about the 'Voices of SMU' Oral History Project.
Established in 2018, 'Voices of SMU' has supported undergraduate and graduate research assistants hired to conduct oral history interviews with Black, Latinx, and Asian alumni.
Register for the upcoming Zoom webinar, sponsored by OSCIE and the DCII Oral History Cluster, by clicking the link below:
|
|
New Finding Aids and Collections
Charles Smith was an insurance investigator for the Texas City disaster that occurred on April 16-17, 1947. Many files in this collection document the aftermath of that disaster, as well as other insurance cases in the Southwest ranging from home fires to oil field lightning strikes. Materials include claims, appraisals, general correspondence, and photographs.
The records of the Intercontinental Rubber Company (IRC) mostly span the years 1903 to 1953 before Texas Instruments acquired the company. IRC was formed as a holding company to acquire and finance the expansion of a producer company, which had developed a process for the manufacture of crude rubber from guayule shrub in Mexico, and as a vehicle for exploration and exploitation of new sources of rubber. Through its operating subsidiaries in Mexico, particularly the Continental Mexican Rubber Company, the company occupied a dominant position in the guayule rubber industry. Materials include legal documents, financial documents, minutes, stock records, correspondence, maps, blueprints, and photographs.
Recently Accessioned
A2021.0006c - Hola! means hello! : typescript by Esther Burnett
A2021.0011 - Ernest Powell correspondence and Youree family papers
|
|
"You speak of fearing another attack of the 'flu'" begins a letter from Lafayette Hunter to his son, written in 1919. He was speaking of the Spanish Influenza, and his advice was to gargle with Listerine in the morning, rub menthol under the nostrils before bed, and swallow petroleum jelly to lubricate the throat. But Hunter also offered suggestions that ring true today, noting 'atmospheric' conditions were likely responsible for the pandemic, so "it it is safest to keep away from it. I would not want to sleep in a room with a patient who has it, nor spend any considerable time in a room where a number of cases were huddled together. That is where the danger from public assemblages arise. A crowded room where the ventilation is poor is dangerous, and always is as to that matter."
|
|
|
|
|
Recent Accessions
The Archives of Women of the Southwest recently accessioned the Deborah Dillon Collection of YWCA postcards, depicting YWCA buildings across the United States. The collection offers a sense of how cities and towns across the country created havens and resource centers for women in the early to mid-20th century.
|
|
DeGolyer Library | Southern Methodist University | 214-768-3637 | degolyer@smu.edu | https://www.smu.edu/Libraries/DeGolyer
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
