"Largest Class Ever Graduated in the State of Texas," Tarrant County College NortheastContent
New Collections
 Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The Southwestern Historical Quarterly is an indispensible resource for Texas history researchers and enthusiasts. The Portal now has 87 issues, dating back to 1898. Articles written by noted scholars cover all aspects of Texas history, including Texas' military brigades and battles, history of the Texas Rangers, Native American tribes of Texas, colonization, and industrialization of Texas. The image on the left is the cover of volume 71, July 1967, an issue devoted to the Texas cattle industry.
Texas General Land Office
 Texas GLO contributed 924 historic county maps, 1838 - 1939. The historic county maps are cadastral (land ownership) maps, showing original surveys, usually made by virtue of a land grant within a particular county in Texas. As land was patented by settlers, meaning a title was issued from the sovereign government, more surveys were shown on GLO maps. Successive
versions of these maps reflect those changes and show the development and expansion as settlement progressed throughout each county in Texas.
 USGS Topographic Maps
Over 4,200 topographic maps of Texas from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) project were added to the Portal. Each map includes towns, historic or notable sites, bodies of water, and other geologic features. Most USGS map series divide the United States into quadrangles bounded by two lines of latitude and two lines of longitude. Others show a whole area—a county, State, national park, or place of special interest.
2010 Rescuing Texas History Grant Projects
The following collections are a sampling of projects that were funded by UNT Libraries' Rescuing Texas History grant. (To apply for the 2011 Rescuing Texas History grant, see grant opportunity section below.)
Bell/Whittington Public Library
Located near Corpus Christi Bay, Bell/Whittington Public Library contributed historic photographs of San Patricio and Nueces Counties. Images include the 1919 hurricane, portraits of early residents and buildings, President Taft's visit to a local ranch in 1909 and hunting photographs from 1898. On the right is a photograph of local hunters posing after a day of hunting ducks on Nueces Bay.
 Richardson Public Library Richardson Public Library provides a rich array of images from its beginning as a rural community, such as portraits of the families and businesses who founded Richardson, as well as historic homes and buildings. Pictured on the left employees are assembling transistors under microscopes at the Texas Instruments Semiconductor Product Plant between 1958-1962.
  The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History
The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History
contributed a wonderful sample of photographs from its Winkelmann Collection. Most of the images are stylized portraits of residents from Brenham and surrounding communities in Washington and Lee counties, dating 1912-1934. The entire collection, housed at the Center for American History, contains over 300,000 negatives, approximately 15,000 of which are glass plates and were photographed by three generations of Winkelmanns.
What's in the Lab now?
 The UNT Digital Projects Unit is digitizing a variety of materials at this time: school yearbooks,  early Texas newspapers, Wilson County Historical Society's photographs, books and manuscripts. The Lab also recently started working on an NEH-funded project to digitize 5,000 historically significant maps belonging to the University of Texas at Arlington Special Collections. And this fall we'll begin digitizing materials for its Texas Cultures Online project that was generously funded by the Amon Carter Foundation.
Announcing a competition
and a new grant opportunity
Calling all teachers and students!
Participate in My Texas History Notebook Awards, a competition that will award fourteen prizes for the top lesson plans on a Texas history topic. There are three categories to choose from, or if you are feeling ambitious, submit one lesson plan for each category.
Please see Guidelines for My Texas History Notebook Awards. The deadline to enter lesson plans is December 15, 2010.
Grant Opportunity - Rescuing Texas History, 2011
UNT Libraries is accepting applications for its Rescuing Texas History grant, 2011. UNT Libraries is dedicated to providing access to Texas history collections belonging to museums, libraries, archives, private collections, historical societies and government agencies throughout Texas. The grant will provide allocations to digitize photographs, negatives (large and small), slides, handwritten materials and non-bound print materials and documents. The application deadline is December 15, 2010. For more details, please click here.
Focus on Football!
Students making a difference...
Meet Reyes Berrios. He has been working in the UNT libraries since 2006; first for two years as a music cataloger and now, since September 2008, as a Graduate Library Assistant (GLA) in the Digital Projects Lab.
Reyes was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a Master's degree from UNT in music performance/music history. He is a flute player and although trained as classical musician, enjoys playing compositions in almost any musical genre, including Latin American and American pop music. Presently, he is working toward his PhD in musicology.  He expects to finish his dissertation in May 2011. It is about the 19th century opera "Macias" by the Puerto Rican composer Felipe Gutierrez Espinosa (1825-1899). His research will demonstrate that Puerto Rico had a very active musical and cultural life that was interrupted after the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Reyes thinks UNT is a wonderful place to study. He values the diverse community of students and great teachers. He also appreciates the “continued efforts of the administration to upgrade its facilities, technology, and classroom resources.”
His work in the Digital Projects Lab is primarily focused on creating digital images and metadata records for items/collections held in the UNT Libraries. He has been trusted with the task of digitizing immensely valuable music scores, opera librettos, yearbooks, maps and pictures. Working with music from the UNT Rare Book Collection offers him a unique opportunity in his field. For example, he digitized and cataloged a score of Debussy’s “Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune,” a copy Debussy dedicated to his friend, the conductor Edouard Colonne, in October of 1895. That score gives us a glimpse at orchestral performance practice of late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century because it contains markings that very likely were added by the conductor in consultation with the composer.
Upon graduation, Reyes would like to continue music research and teaching. He is also a performer and will certainly continue to express himself through music-making. Reyes has been a valuable part of our team in the Digital Projects Lab. We expect to hear great things about him in the future.
Newspapers recently added to the Portal
Breckenridge Weekly Democrat, 1926-1933
Breckenridge American, 1920-1927, 1931-1932
Brenham Weekly Banner, 1877-1897
El Paso Herald, 1910 (more issues forthcoming)
Galveston Weekly News, 1844-1861
Greenville Morning Herald, 1910, 1918
Jefferson Jimplecute, 1889-1911
San Angelo Press, 1901-1906
San Saba News, 1876-1891
San Saba Weekly News, 1889-1892
Shiner Gazette, 1893-1911
Waco Daily Examiner, 1874-1888
Waco Evening News, 1888-1889, 1892-1893
Highlights from the UNT Digital Collections
Gordon Knox Film Collection
The Gordon Knox Film Collection contains over 100 films created by Texas-born filmmaker Gordon Knox (1906 – 1982) or Mr. Knox’s production company, The Princeton Film Archives. The collection contains short and feature-length documentaries produced between 1937 and 1964 for the United States Armed Forces, state and federal government agencies, non-profit organizations and private sector clients. Currently, 67 films in the Gordon Knox Collection are available through the UNT Digital Library. The remaining 35mm films are housed at the UNT Media Library, along with physical 16mm copies of the 67 films available through the UNT Digital Library.
   
What is Modern Art? | Film on Tim Holt | Giant Killers ELCO| 100 Years New Mexico
|
Visit our Resources 4 Educators web site. We've added Primary Source Sets and Newspaper Narratives.
Hot Comments
"Love your site, use it all the time and recommend it on message boards all the time." L. Smith
 "Thank you so much for this site, it has really been wonderful to see a glimpse
into my family's daily life!"
Best regards, A. Apperson
"Just want to say a big "THANK YOU" for this wonderful site." Regards, Lufkin, Texas
"I am always excited to visit this blog in the evenings. It is very entertaining."
- L. Derna
Image of the month
An advertisement for The Katy Flyer in the July, 1900 issue of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. The ad boasted a new, fast, solid vestibuled train with sleepers, free reclining chair cars, and 50¢ meals in the dining cars.
Mission Statement
The Portal to Texas History offers students and lifetime learners a digital gateway to the rich collections held in Texas libraries, museums, archives, historical societies and private collections.
Sign up for the Portal to Texas E-Newsletter!
Please forward this newsletter to friends, family, or anyone else who loves Texas history! If you'd like to sign up for our newsletter, just click the link above and send the email
It's Online!!
More Texas historic newspapers have been added to the Portal recently. The Portal's education team created lesson plans using newspaper articles so students can learn about history through first-hand accounts covering immigration, the cattle kingdom, the Civil War, and the progressive era.
The cartoon above is featured in the El Paso Herald newspaper in 1917.
 The Portal on Facebook
If you are on Facebook, join the Portal to Texas History page to be the first to hear the latest Portal news and stories.
Who Knew?
You can find anything on the Portal, really. . .
A search for the keyword "money" found quite a number of items!
 Republic of Texas dollar bill from the Fort Bend Museum.
 One Cent copper coin with two drilled holes from the
Star of the Republic Museum.
 1943 French note or ticket from the Banque Chabasseur Oran from the Sulphur Springs Public Library.
 What the heck is this? It's a money pouch used in the 1840's for carrying silver from the Star of the Republic Museum.
Contact Us
Beyond the Bytes is a free electronic newsletter emailed to subscribers of our listserv.
Dreanna Belden, Editor:
dreanna.belden@unt.edu
Tara Carlisle, Editor:
tara.carlisle@unt.edu
Nancy Reis, Editor:
nancy.reis@unt.edu
Ann Howington, Contributor
ann.howington@unt.edu
UNT Libraries
Portal to Texas History
1155 Union Circle #305190
Denton, TX 76203-5017
940.565.3023
See our back issues:
May 2010
November 2010
July 2009
April 2009
October 2008
August 2008
Spring 2008
Summer 2007
Winter 2007
Fall 2006
Summer 2006
Spring 2006
|
