Highlighting the work that Public History students at Texas State University engage in at the Wittliff.
Category: Public History Projects
9/11: A Reflective Pause
Photographer Eric O’Connell photographed the chaos and atrocities of September 11, 2001 and survived. Speaking with him recently about the upcoming twentieth anniversary, he said “it brings him reflective pause on what happened to him personally” and added, “that all …
Who was Mr. Bojangles?
Polka Dot Slim. Pork Chops. Babe Stovall. Re-Pete. They are the nicknames of African American street performers who worked the New Orleans’ French Quarter in the early and mid-1960s. One of them is likely Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles.” The …
The long journey to restoring “The History of Ranching.”
In 1950 the Wimberley, Texas artist James Buchanan “Buck” Winn was commissioned by the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio to paint The History of Ranching, a massive mural to adorn the walls of the Corral, the brewery’s oval-shaped hospitality room. …
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“It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll” in Tennessee and Texas
By Wittliff staff member, Library Specialist, Sherri Turner-Herrmann. Rock and roll hit me like a freight train early on. When I was 8, my cousin introduced me to Alice Cooper and that’s when the first train hit. Shock rock, hard …
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Re-discovering Peter Pan at The Wittliff
By Wittliff student worker, Eric Robertson-Gordon. Growing up, my childhood was filled with movies. My father would often show me and my sister movies that he remembered loving when he was a child. My dad was a cinephile and it …
Waylon and Lefty: Marine Corps pitch men?
The forgotten 60-second Marine Corps. recruiting spot fades in with the familiar symphonic chorus of “MacArthur Park” – “Someone left the cake out in the rain . . .” But the voice is not that of actor Richard Harris, who …
Digital Treasures: Here today, here tomorrow.
The Digital Preservation Coalition cites November 7th as World Digital Preservation Day. It is just another day here at The Wittliff Collections, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to share with you some of our ongoing digital …
Processing Jane Sumner’s audio archives opened up a fascinating world to me.
By Wittliff student worker, Jessica Henriquez. Jane Sumner, an award-winning film journalist for The Dallas Morning News, has interviewed directors, producers, writers, book authors, and the former Governor of Texas, Ann Richards. Through the years, she’s kept her roughly-recorded microcassettes …
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“Recuerdos” And Souvenir Postcards From Mexico
In 2013, Susan Toomey Frost donated her collection of Mexican Border Town postcards representing 22 Mexican cities and towns along the 1,969-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico. The collection consists of 3,857 images, including real photo postcards and printed …
A Brief History of The Encino Press
In 1963, shortly after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Bill Wittliff and his wife, Sally, founded the Encino Press on the kitchen table of their Dallas apartment. The press focused on regional material about Texas and the …
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