Vietnamese Resettlement in Houston story map

Oral histories from the Woodson Research Center’s Houston Asian American Archive are featured in an online map-based narrative entitled “Life After the Tragic Exodus: Vietnamese Resettlement in Houston (1975 – Present).” This story uses oral history clips, photographs, maps, and news clippings to share war, migration, and resettlement experiences from the Vietnamese perspective. It forms part of the online peer reviewed journal, Transnational Asia, Volume 3, Issue 1 (Fall 2019). This issue explores the Houston Asian American Archives program in detail, from its modest beginnings nine years ago, to its more robust presence now with well over 200 fully transcribed oral histories online, and 27 related archival collections available at the Woodson Research Center.

Jack McCaine NASA photographs

Aerial View of the Manned Spacecraft Center, 1966

Our team recently uploaded a batch of images from the Jack McCaine NASA papers. Here is more information on these items.

First Floor, Looking Northeast, Building 24

The Jack McCaine NASA papers consist of newspapers, books, magazines, brochures, posters, photographs, certificates, charts, memorabilia, awards and recognition. He joined the Spacecraft Center Area Office, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1962. From August 1962 – January 1966, Jack McCaine was employed as project manager for the design and construction of the Mission Control Center, Buildings 30 and 48, and an addition to the Central Heating and Cooling Plant, Building 24 at the Manned Spacecraft Center. This project had an extremely tight schedule, being tied to the space program in progress. This was a first–no one had built a Mission Control Center before. He was project manager for design of the Project Engineering Facility, Building 45, which is a seven-story office building. He was also manager for design of the Test Operations Support Facility, Building 32A. This was an addition to the large vacuum chamber building.

Labeled Aerial View of the Manned Spacecraft Center, 1966

Thanksgiving Break Fashion Show

University business will shut down tomorrow at 2 pm. The students who choose to stay over the break will go to friends’ houses for meals, cross their fingers that their magister and RAs will prepare a Thanksgiving meal, or just hole up in their rooms eating meals appetizing to college students.

In 1965, the students didn’t let the Thanksgiving break get in the way of fun. The Tuesday before the holiday the Student Center Board hosted a silver dance. On Sunday, Wolfman’s department store presented a winter fashion show and silver tea.

If you are wondering why these events use the word silver, it might refer to the act of donating funds into a silver bowl that will go to a charity. For the silver dance, as the news clipping notes, donations went to funding a cage for Sammy.

If you’d like to know more about what the Student Center Board did during the 1965-1966, there’s a great write-up in the Campanile.

Relive your history or the student history of Rice by checking out the almost complete run 1916-2018 (missing 1936 and 2017) online.

We Die in Glory

Sometimes you just need something a little weird to end the week. This is Aviation Quarterly‘s replica of the March 1932 “Wings.” I can’t find out much more about this, and I’m pretty sure this is not written by George Bruce the poet.

As an added bonus, here’s an ad for getting big husky muscles.

Have a great weekend.

Upcoming Event – 11/14

For those living locally, we’d like to invite you to a showing of For the Sake of the Song: The Story of Anderson Fair. The event will include a short reception with mini-empanadas, the film, a performance by Vince Bell, and a Q&A with the director Bruce Bryant.

It’ll be a great night celebrating a segment of Houston’s music history. We hope to see you there.

Happy Halloween and Homecoming

Murder is at the heart of our university. We thought we’d highlight a couple of interesting news clippings that surround the murder of William Marsh Rice. The one above is rather creepy with its grim reaper/the ghost of Rice at an otherworldly ribbon cutting.

The other is incredibly amusing. Rice was murdered by chloroform by his valet. If the valet was able to hypnotize Rice and “put him out of life, into death, without poison, without striking a blow,” it would have been hard to gather enough evidence to convict.

If you are on campus for Homecoming, feel free to come for a visit. We’ll be open on Friday 9:00-4:00.

Sisters’ Symposium

A few years ago we received a small collection of materials from Mayor Annise Parker. They mainly document gay rights and the AIDS/HIV epidemic of the 1980s. There are a couple of HOOT! newsletters from 1993. For the uninformed, HOOT! is/was a publication of the Rice Gay and Lesbian Alumni Association.

Below Mayor Parker’s anecdotes from her time at Rice and the creation of the Sisters’ Symposium from January 1993. Bonnie Huval, later in July, expands on the group’s early days.

If you’re on campus, check out our new exhibit “LGBTQ @ Rice & in HTX.” It features information and items from our Oh Project collection, Queers and Allies records, the ARCH oral histories, and others.

21st Century Rice Map

A large team has been working hard to create both an interactive and historical map of Rice called instituteRice. For example, you can look at Lovett Hall from a variety of angles and at different points in time. If you love exploring, Rice history, and just poking around, this is the map for you. While the Woodson did not make this map, our archival materials pop up everywhere on it.

Have fun!

Pajama Bridge

from the Ileene Rosenfeld Robinson papers

Text reads: Stretch your weary limbs and come to a Pajama Bridge Party at the home of Pauline Wateyman, June 14, 1930 at 10:AM Don’t bother to chance Come in your pajamas.

Sounds fun, if you like bridge. Also, don’t forget your kitten heels with your pj’s.

Rice Media Center Films

Genevieve Howell in her room on campus.

In a Rice News article by Katharine Shilcutt, the Woodson and Fondren Library has been working in conjunction with the Rice Media Center to help them preserve their treasures. You can read more about it here.

As the article notes, Interim Director, Amanda Focke, has a few large hard drives in her office that contain a portion of the digitized content. We wanted to show off some of the stills from one of the films entitled Three Rice Engineers (1972). This 16mm documentary created by David Gerth features interviews with John Doerr, Genevieve Howell, and Tom Dydek.

Pres. Norman Hackerman

John Doerr and Mike Donegan

Unknown student and Genevieve Howell

Tom Dydek in his office