As our archives staff work on an ongoing basis to arrange, preserve, describe, and make available to the public the materials under our care, we spotlight new additions to the website in a regular feature from Out of the Stacks. The quarterly column lists new and revised finding aids recently made available online. We close out the piece highlighting fresh uploads to the Texas Digital Archive, our repository of electronic items.
Archivists create finding aids for collections once they are processed and add these descriptive guides to Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO). TARO hosts finding aids from institutions around the state and researchers may determine whether to limit searches to the State Archives. Not all collections have been processed and therefore the list of finding aids does not represent the entirety of our holdings. The Archives & Manuscripts page of the TSLAC website provides more information and guidance on how to access archival collections. Contact ref@tsl.texas.gov or 512-463-5455 with questions about using TSLAC’s archival resources. For a comprehensive list of all recently added and updated finding aids visit Archives: Finding Aids (New & Revised).
NEW FINDING AIDS
Manuscripts
W.C. Morrow Papers
http://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/90058/tsl-90058.html
Wright Chalfant Morrow was a lawyer, Democratic state senator, and Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The W.C. Morrow papers focused on W.C. Morrow’s campaign for judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas in 1916. The papers also provide insight into his personal finances through a collection of personal letters, receipts, and checks.
Zarh Pritchard Collection
http://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/50147/tsl-50147.html
Zarh Pritchard, born Walter Howlison Mackenzie Pritchard, was an artist best known for painting underwater landscapes while underwater. The Zarh Pritchard collection documents his work, travels, and interest in numerology and the occult. Included are letter and card correspondence; pamphlets and invitations; administrative files detailing his personal finances, business dealings, and properties; books and literary efforts; magazine and newspaper clippings; memorabilia collected through his travels, friendships, and business dealings; photographs, drawings, and postcards; and artifacts and artwork. Dates covered are about 1870s-1959, undated, bulk 1904-1953.
REVISED FINDING AIDS
State Records
Texas Department of Transportation Right of Way Division Records
https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/13003/tsl-13003.html
These records include conveyances, maps, and titles for property owned by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Right of Way Division. The Right of Way Division coordinates the acquisition of land to build, widen, or enhance highways and provides relocation assistance when needed. The division also coordinates utility adjustments, and the disposition and leasing of surplus real property owned by TxDOT. The records document these land transfers and date from 1920 to 2017, and undated. The records are part of an ongoing digitization project by TxDOT that has begun with the Austin District; the project will continue with other major-municipality districts and finish with the less populous ones.
Pearl Beer commercial promoting recycling program:
Video: Pearl Beer 30-second spot, about 1973. Television and radio spot films and audiotapes, Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation Travel and Information Division films and audiotapes, 2013/063 TXDOT. Texas State Library and Archives Commission. View in TDA.
Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation Travel and Information Division Films and Audiotapes (a portion of these records are available in the TDA) https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/12006/tsl-12006.html
The Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation (TSDHPT) was responsible for the building and maintenance of Texas roads and highways and for developing public mass transportation in state from 1975 to 1991. The agency was formed in 1975 when the Texas Legislature merged the Texas Highway Department and the Texas Mass Transportation Commission into this single agency. Both TSDHPT and the Texas Highway Department operated a Travel and Information Division that promoted travel to and within the state of Texas, highway safety, and tourism through the distribution of publications, audiovisual programs, and news media materials. Records consist of 76 film projects made up of 16mm motion pictures and motion picture components, 0.25-inch open reel audiotapes, a 35mm work print, and an audiocassette, dating 1963-1990, bulk 1970-1985. Projects comprise Texas tourism and other films, as well as radio and television news stories, commercials, and public service announcements that were produced by the division. Subjects include bridge construction, anti-littering campaigns, tourist attractions around Texas, highway safety, highway funding, and public transportation. Included are different motion picture production components, such as work prints, internegatives, soundtracks, film clips, and stock shots. A portion of these materials have been digitized and are part of the Texas Digital Archive.
Texas Tourist Development Agency Photographs and Audiovisual Materials (portions of the slides and negatives are available in the Texas Digital Archive and a portion of the slides is available on the Texas State Archives Flickr page)
https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/50090/tsl-50090.html
Texas Tourist Development Agency photographs and audiovisual materials document the activities of the Texas Tourist Development Agency (TTDA) and its work to increase the state’s share of the national tourist market using a variety of mass media. The materials include photographic color slides, transparencies, negatives, photographic prints, videotapes, motion picture films, and audio tapes and date from 1964 to 1997 and undated. Portions of the slides and negatives have been digitized and are part of the Texas Digital Archive. In addition, a portion of digitized slides is available through the Texas State Archives Flickr page.
Texas Governor Rick Perry Economic Development and Tourism Division Records (a portion of these are electronic records available on the TDA, some of which are available only after review for restricted information, upon receipt of a researcher request)
https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/60014/tsl-60014.html
The Economic Development and Tourism Division (EDT) of the Texas Governor’s Office under Governor Rick Perry specialized in encouraging in-state business expansion and relocation as well as promoting domestic and international tourism via partnerships with local convention and visitors bureaus, chambers of commerce, and private travel-related organizations. These records document the regular activities of several sections of EDT, along with predecessor agencies the Texas Department of Commerce and Texas Department of Economic Development, during the terms of Governors Rick Perry, George W. Bush, and Ann Richards. Efforts to convince corporate entities to relocate or expand into the state of Texas are a particular emphasis. Records include paper, audiovisual, and electronic record types encompassing incoming and outgoing correspondence, memorandums, reports, publications, presentations, speeches, organization charts, clippings, press releases, notes, working papers, strategic plans, agendas, meeting materials, calendars, promotional materials, project files, videocassette tapes, audiocassette tapes, and digital images. Records date 1989-2015.
Texas State Board of Education School District Records
http://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/15005/tsl-15005.html
The Texas State Board of Education in conjunction with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction administered state management of public schools in Texas until the passage of the Gilmer-Aiken laws in 1949. The Texas State Board of Education school district records consist of annual/term reports, bonds of indebtedness, notices of incorporation, scholastic censuses, and treasurer’s annual statements. These records provide details on school district finances, student and teacher demographics, and school facilities and date 1879-1938 and undated, bulk 1880-1912.
RECENTLY ADDED TO THE TEXAS DIGITAL ARCHIVE (TDA)
The Minnie Sneed Wilcox Collection Scrapbooks
https://tsl.access.preservica.com/tda/manuscripts-collections/#wilcox
The Minnie Sneed Wilcox collection is an assembly of scrapbooks, correspondence, organization reports, and other materials that document the activities of Minnie Sneed Wilcox in three Texas music clubs between 1920 and 1945, bulk 1923-1941: the Wednesday Morning Music Club, the Texas Federation of Music Clubs, and the Texas Music Teachers Association.
