News from the DeGolyer Library
April 2021
Southern Methodist University
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Our Latest Virtual Exhibit |
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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items here, and from March 14th to June 20th, 2021, visit the Meadows Museum to view over 100 works of art, specimens, historical documents, and artifacts, many of which are exhibited outside of their home departments for the first time.
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Updates from the Prints & Photographs Collection |
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Remembering Lynn Lennon
Third generation Texan and photographer Lynn Lennon passed away February 20, 2021. When Lennon was seven, her father gave her a viewfinder from an old Speed Graphic camera. She carried it with her, often framing imaginary pictures. The next Christmas, she requested a camera and received a Baby Brownie. Her father set up a darkroom, and together they developed her negatives and made prints. Lennon never forgot the magic of seeing images emerge in the developing tray, and photography became a life-long interest.
The Lynn Lennon photographs collection at the DeGolyer Library consists of approximately 700 photographic prints and 40,244 negatives. In addition, there are Lennon’s self-portraits and book-related materials. Beginning in 1984, Lennon decided to document the State Fair of Texas for ten years. During the run of the Fair, she went often; her work captures the essence of the Texas institution. The Lynn Lennon Prints & Photographs collection is also part of the Archives of the Women of the Southwest. Click here to view a collection of Lennon's work.
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Research at work:
How non-SMU-affiliated scholars use SMU Libraries
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Dr. Timothy Baugh, Director of the Wichita Tribal History Center in Anadarko, Oklahoma, was writing an article, planned for publication in the 2021 Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society. He felt it would be enriched by a photograph of a Wichita grass house to illustrate the construction process. He found an image entitled “Wichita Indian, Grass House. Near Anadarko, I.T.” within the U.S. West collection of the SMU Libraries Digital Collections website. He contacted the DeGolyer Library and curator of photographs, Anne Peterson, found the picture and provided him with a high-resolution file. The image enabled Baugh to explain the construction techniques used by the Wichita in the 18th and 19th centuries. This work is critical to chronicling the tribe’s history. Baugh said the partnership with DeGolyer Library was a great opportunity to share and preserve the Wichita building techniques for future generations of the tribe’s men and women. “We also attempted to show the different types of structures used by the original inhabitants of Oklahoma and North Texas,” he said. Click her to explore the U.S. West Digital Collection.
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Joan Gosnell wins Outstanding Staff Award
University Archivist Joan Gosnell was awarded one of the 2020-2021 Outstanding Staff Awards by the SMU Faculty Senate. Joan has been at SMU since 2004, serving as the University Archivist. In addition to managing the institutional memory of SMU and overseeing the JC Penney archives, Joan is a welcoming friend and invaluable resource to the researchers who visit our reading room. We're grateful to the Faculty Senate for recognizing her excellence--the DeGolyer team couldn't agree more!
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For this year's National Library Week, Samantha Dodd looked at the life and career of SMU's first librarian, Dorothy Amann. Born in Ripley, Mississippi, Amann was first hired in 1913 to serve as President R.S. Hyer's secretary, before taking over the library collection in 1915. This led Amann to the Library Science program at Columbia. Amann later served as the President of the Texas Library Association, President of the Dallas Library Club, and founder and President of the Southwest Library Association.
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In her latest blog post, Cynthia Franco highlights the Nela Rio papers. Rio was born in Argentina, and studied there, and later at Emory University in Georgia, and as a graduate student at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, where she has lived and taught since 1977. Rio's work explores themes ranging from migration to sexuality and gender to ideology, and in her papers, researcher can examine her academic work, correspondence, drafts of her writings, and more. Along with her papers, Rio donated her book collection which features writers and poets from Argentina, the United States, and Canada, but with a focus on Latin America.
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From SMU to Hollywood, Samantha Dodd traces the life and career of Margaret Tallichet Wyler. Margaret Tallichet was born in Dallas in 1914 and graduated from SMU in 1935 with a degree in English and French. She wrote society columns and film reviews for the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Morning News, and performed with the Arden Club and Dallas Little Theater. Soon after moving to California, friend Carole Lombard introduced her to producer David O. Selznick, who ordered a screen test for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. Tallichet married legendary movie director William Wyler, and appeared in the original A Star is Born and A Desperate Adventure opposite Ramon Novarro.
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New Finding Aids and Collections
Richard W. Fisher was Assistant to the United States Secretary of the Treasury (1977-1979), Deputy United States Trade Representative (1997-2001), and President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (2005-2015). His papers contain his handwritten notes and documents of meetings with foreign heads of state during President Carter's administration and three scrapbooks of his professional career.
The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation records chronicle the history of the nonprofit organization seeking funding for the fight against breast cancer. Records consist of papers, photographs, clippings, company publications, awards, and artifacts along with an additional terabyte of digital video, photograph, and document files.
Recently Accessioned
A2021.0015c - The library of the W.P. Ballinger home...
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Collection Highlight
Dames, gumshoes, cowboys, and criminals. You'll find them all in our incoming collection of paperback and pulp fiction novels. The cover art was often the most striking feature of this form of popular literature, wherein Westerns, romances, and mysteries were populated with tough guys and femme fatales. The works were often written under pseudonyms, though we should note the appearance of Nobel laureate William Faulkner and his novel Sanctuary in our recent accession of 'lurid paperbacks' acquired from a dealer at this year's (virtual) Ephemera Society of America show. Click here to explore cataloged pulp fiction at the DeGolyer.
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Recent Accessions
Prints & Photographs recently accessioned a collection of PIX photographs of Mexico and Latin America. The collection includes 178 images from the photographers of PIX, a photograph bureau that provided images to major magazines. The company was active from 1935 until 1969. Photographers in this collection include Peggo Cromer, Mauricio Fresco, Dorothy Hosmer, Betty Kirk, Wallace Kirkland, and Herbert Lanks. Highlights include images of Mexican archaeological sites by Lanks; San Luis Potosi and Saturnino Cedillo by Kirk; funerals in Mexico by Kirkland; daily life in Mexico by Hosmer; Oaxaca celebrations; and military scenes by Fresco. Click here to learn more.
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DeGolyer Library | Southern Methodist University | 214-768-3637 | degolyer@smu.edu | https://www.smu.edu/Libraries/DeGolyer
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