In case you haven’t seen it, there are quite a few articles about the Woodson’s various projects and collection in the most recent issue of News from Fondren. They include information on the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) archive, the Reginald Moore Convict Leasing research collection, the Shepherd School digitization project, the Houston Folk Music Archive’s Homecoming concert, and the Wilson Collection of Historical Cartography and Geography.
We hope everyone had a nice break. We’re back and ready for researchers, if you’re able to drag yourself in. If you’d rather stay at home, we’ve got you covered.
Our hardworking student archivist, Trevor Egerton created a new online exhibit entitled: A Soldier’s Story: WWI Letters and Diaries of Paul B. Hendrickson
It tells the story of Paul B. Hendrickson and includes an interactive map about his time here in Houston and in Europe. We hope you enjoy it.
For those keeping up with the new Houston Jewish History Archive, we wanted to alert you to the new blog. It highlights items from the collection, but also tells the story of Houston’s Jewish community.
The most recent post is on Hanukkah celebrations.
Image courtesy of The Media Preserve
The family of Peter Gardner had a large trove of over 100 reel-to-reels that they wanted to digitize. We worked with them to send the reels to The Media Preserve and now the music on the reels is alive once again.
A little background on Peter Gardner. He arrived in Houston in 1963 with his then wife and musical partner Isabelle. She now goes by Isabelle Ganz, expect an oral history from her in the coming months. The Gardners traveled the U.S. and Europe performing unique arrangements of traditional folk songs from all over the world. In 1963, Peter became the Director of Adult Activities at the Jewish Community Center. He started the radio program “The Sampler” on KRBE in 1965, which he recorded in his home. Peter also hosted pickin’ parties there in the mid-1960s, which is where Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt met.
The reels themselves shine a light on the early days of Houston’s folk scene and also provide a glimpse into the programming at the JCC. Live performers include Frank Davis, Kay (K.T.) Oslin, Ed Badeaux, Carolyn Terry, Sara Wiggins, John Lomax, Jr., Jerry Jeff Walker, perhaps the first recording of Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and other surprising discoveries like The Gospel Mellowtones.
Image courtesy of The Media Preserve
It will be a few months until the items are reading room ready, but we wanted to give everyone a sneak peek of what is to come.
The Houston Folk Music Archive has a couple of new oral histories that have been indexed and are ready for viewing.
The first is from Walter Spinks. He tells about his teenage years going to Sand Mountain Coffee House, his duo Fat and Furry, and being a co-owner of Anderson Fair Retail Restaurant.
The second is from Houston folk band Wheatfield. They talk about the band’s formation, becoming a regional powerhouse band, their lives post-Wheatfield, and the reformation of the band.
If you are interested in watching more oral histories about Houston’s folk music scene, you can find more here.
Wheatfield will also be playing at Fondren Library live on November 2nd at 6 p.m. If you are in town for Homecoming or just love live music, please stop by. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.
While we are not completely finished, we wanted to let our devoted KTRU-ers know that we are updating the news masters at scholarship.rice.edu.
We’ve used the University of Kentucky’s OHMS viewer to index the news masters to ensure that you can find what you need fast.
For example, if you go to scholarship.rice.edu, search for “news masters,” select News Master 4. and click the blue button labeled “Synchronized Viewer,” you’ll see this.
You can click on any indexed part. You can then select “play segment” or “segment link.” If you do the latter, you can post the snippet of audio to Facebook or elsewhere.
We hope you enjoy this added level of functionality.
For the past few months, I’ve this seen this trophy sitting on a shelf.
Here is what I know. This trophy is not the official Bayou Bucket trophy pictured in this Houston Chronicle article.
Here is my guess. This trophy was made for a charity event wherein UH and Rice tried to raise money for the Touchdown Club.
What I’m asking all of you is: a) Is my guess correct? b) When did this happen?
The Woodson now has a new addition to our Story Maps. We’ve used Esri’s ArcGIS software in conjunction with their Story Map application to create a map that follows the growth and decline of Houston’s folk music scene. Included are photographs of venues, posters, video clips of people describing the places, and some live audio.
If you haven’t checked out our Story Maps on U.S. Civil War Narratives and Journals and Diaries, you are in for a visual treat.
In honor of Pride Month, this a section from a series of panels made by the Rice community to commemorate the display of the The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which visited campus. The Community Involvement Center, the Wellness Center, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs spearheaded the display in 2001.
Here is a photograph of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at the Rice Memorial Center around February 15, 2002.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt still goes out on display and is searchable by name. In this vein, the oH Project collection, containing oral histories of HIV/AIDS in Houston, Harris County, and Southeast Texas, has a large number of interview transcripts online. If you want to learn more from AIDS survivors and caretakers in Houston, it is a wonderful resource.
A recent university archival collection yielded a large amount of LPs. Sadly, many of these are multiple copies. We have kept two for ourselves and will eventually digitize them. We’d like to offer the rest to you for free. Please email slg4@rice.edu if you are interested.
In other news, our own Amanda Focke won the Society of Southwest Archivists Distinguished Service Award. She is a long serving member, who has been active on a variety of committees, served as president, and is currently a board member. Congrats to her on such a well-deserved honor.
