UTSA Libraries Special Collections and the family of Willie Velásquez will unite for an evening to celebrate the life and legacy of one of America’s most influential voting rights advocates, William C. Velásquez. The plática will serve as a tribute, marking what would have been Velásquez’s 80th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP), an organization he founded and spearheaded*.
Willie Velásquez: Su Voz,” will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 16, in the Buena Vista Theater at the UTSA Downtown Campus. Open to the public, the plática will give attendees a look into the multifaceted layers of Velásquez’s life, exploring his motivations, challenges, and triumphs that extended far beyond his role as a voting rights champion.
Moderated by Teresa Niño, vice president for University Relations at UTSA, the plática will feature Jane Velásquez, the widow of Willie Velásquez, offering personal reflections on Velásquez’s enduring commitment to social change.
Accompanying her will be former San Antonio City Councilwoman María Antonietta Berriozábal, who will bring her firsthand experiences of advocacy within the Latino community; former Texas House of Representative for District 27 Dora Olivo, who will provide a legislative perspective on the ongoing fight for voting rights and Anthony Gonzalez, Marshall High School Mexican American Studies teacher and the winner of the 2022 Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities Award from Humanities Texas.
Special Collections will have pop-up exhibit featuring photographs, memorabilia, and clippings concentrating on Velasquez’s life, mission, and accomplishments throughout his life.
Get more information and register for the event: https://lib.utsa.edu/specialcollections/events/willie-velasquez-su-voz
*In 2015 we acquired the records of the Southwest Voter Registration Project. You can read more about that here.
Faces and Places of Texas: Preserving and Digitizing the Institute of Texan Cultures’ Audiovisual Collections
This blog post is written by Graeme Martin our audiovisual archivist
It has been about a year and a half since I was hired as the audiovisual archivist on the ILMS grant-funded project to catalog and process the audiovisual items in the Institute of Texan Cultures Audiovisual Projection Department Records collection. The goal is to inventory and assess over 3,000 audiovisual objects, including 16mm film, U-Matic tapes, open-reel audiotapes, and open-reel video tapes. We began the project by setting up a cataloging tool and determining what technical and descriptive metadata about the assets we felt was necessary to track. The cataloging portion of the project began in December of 2022, and is at long last reaching completion. Once this step is completed, a processing plan can be created and we can begin processing this collection. Since the start of this project in October 2022, we have also hired four student workers who have assisted in the cataloging process.
Discovering the content of the materials in the collection has been an interesting and rewarding experience. Over the years the Institute of Texan Cultures created several educational videos and documentaries about people and cultures across Texas. Within the collection is not only final copies of those films, but also the unedited footage from the productions, which includes interesting interviews and footage that did not end up in the final product. Additionally, a significant amount of unedited footage of the annual Texas Folklife Festival includes footage of musical and dance performances from many groups from San Antonio, and across Texas.
Much of the material in the collection has been preserved well over the years, however there are some recurring problems that tend to arise with audiovisual materials. Vinegar syndrome is present with some of the films in the collection, just as soft binder syndrome is present with many of the open-reel audiotape. These are just two examples of preservation concerns that we have to be on the look-out for when examining audiovisual materials. Continued deterioration of audiovisual materials is a serious concern, so proper housing is of the utmost importance. Luckily, we have grant funds to digitize part of this collection, so we are able to digitally preserve some material that shows significant signs of deterioration.
Creating the catalog and determining preservation concerns have been an integral part of deciding which materials should be digitized as part of this project. We plan to digitize around 200 at-risk materials, with 70 that have already been digitized, 70 that are currently being digitized, and a third batch of material that will be sent to a vendor for digitization in the near future. As part of the digitization project, the films from the original Dome Show presentation “Faces and Places of Texas” will be digitized. The dome show is one of the most important parts of the history of the Institute of Texan Cultures and was seen by tens of thousands of people during the World’s Fair and school groups and visitors after the Fair was over.
I’m looking forward to the continuation of this project, especially to be able to provide online access to some of the digitized material.
Diana & Julia: A Friendship Through Correspondence
This post celebrates the 101st birthday of Diana Kennedy on March 3rd.
In 2019, Special Collections began acquiring materials from British food journalist Diana Kennedy. Over the last five years, what started with eleven 19th-century published cookbooks has grown to include the Diana Kennedy Papers as well as her research library. While processing these materials, staff have come across letters and cards from friends, fans, and colleagues. Kennedy kept many of her personal favorites in her “Happy File”.
Within the Happy File are three letters from Julia Child written in the spring of 1975 that provide a glimpse into the friendship between these two larger-than-life authors. The two initially connected after Kennedy visited France in 1974. She had met Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking co-author Simone Beck who was unable to reach Child at the time due to a mail strike. Beck asked Kennedy to phone Child upon her return to the states and when she did, Child invited her to Boston (Bohlin 1975). Kennedy took her up on that offer at the end of January 1975.
The letters in our Happy File follow this visit:
- On March 18th, Child offers sympathy to Kennedy over the latter’s recent “nasty operation” and commiserates sharing some of her husband Paul Child’s recent operation and recovery. She also vents about working on her latest book, dreading doing her taxes, and confirms it was one of Child’s knives was brought to Kennedy in the hospital along with her last letter.
- On April 4th, Child shares her excitement over Kennedy’s upcoming visit to to Cambridge, Massachusetts, but she mentions in a postscript that she may be in New York City that week to work on her new book. Kennedy appears to have recovered from her previously mentioned operation, not without difficulty due to her drinking water being contaminated with detergents. Child encourages Kennedy to “forget about the knife” that had gone missing while Kennedy was in the hospital. In response to Kennedy mentioning making her huevos en rabo de mestiza recipe from her Cuisines of Mexico book for a Channel 5 segment, Child asks in her first postscript if huevos rancheros might be easier and invited Kennedy to borrow their tortilla machine to demonstrate making tortillas.
- On May 20th, Child confirmed she received a cheese book sent by Kennedy and complained about store-bought cheese being too “sticky”. She then reiterated that she and Paul enjoyed Kennedy’s most recent visit saying “we feel we’ve known you for years–and that is comfortable, at our ages, to fall into a really kindred friend.”
![HUEVOS EN RABO DE MESTIZA [Eggs poached in a chili-tomato broth] 6 servings This makes a very substantial brunch dish. In San Luis Potosi it was served to me instead of soup before a fiambre. The traditional Potosina cook frowns on those who, for convenience, put hard-boiled eggs into the sauce. Incidentally, some of the best commercial dairy products are to be found in San Luis: the Carranco butter and cream cheese, and the Coronado cajeta. It was this very delicious creamy cheese that was used for huevos en rabo de mestiza when I last ate them in San Luis. A large -fireproof dish at Ieast 3 inches deep ½ cup peanut or vegetable oil 1 large onion, thinly sliced 7 chiles poblanos, roasted and peeled, or 10 canned, peeled green chilies A blender 2 pounds tomatoes broiled ( page 44) Heat the oil and cook the onion, without browning, until it is soft. Remove the seeds from the chilies and cut them into strips. Add them to the onions in the pan and let them cook for about 3 minutes, stirring them so that they do not stick. Blend the whole broiled tomatoes for a few seconds and add them to the onion-chili mixture. Do not overblend-the sauce should have some texture. Let them cook over a fairly high flame for about 10 minutes, or until the sauce is well seasoned and has reduced somewhat. (continued)](https://utsalibrariestopshelf.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tcom_page_1.png)
Though the Happy File contains merely a snapshot of this friendship, the Papers of Julia Child, housed at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, contain more extensive correspondence from both parties from 1975-1981. Indeed, the letters in the Kennedy file of the Child papers provided additional background information to the letters in the Kennedy papers. What is evident from this correspondence is that Diana Kennedy and Julia Child were kindred spirits with mutual respect and fondness for each other.
Sources
Bohlin, Virginia. “The French Chef Picks Up a Few Mexican Cooking Tips.” Boston Herald American. February 3, 1975.
Happy File, Diana Kennedy Papers, MS 512, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections. https://txarchives.org/utsa/finding_aids/00437.xml
Kennedy, Diana, 1975-1981, Papers of Julia Child, 1925-1993, MC 644, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository at Harvard University. https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/9746
Kennedy, Diana. The Cuisines of Mexico. [1st ed.]. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Perrin, Gail. “Diana — the Kennedy up on Mexican food.” The Boston Globe. February 6, 1975.
Introducing Our New Digital Collections Specialist
We are thrilled to announce our new Digital Collections Specialist, Vic Rocha. Vic was most recently a Library Shelver with the Seguin Public Library. They also recently received their MLIS with a concentration in Archival Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Tell us a bit about your background.
I graduated from UTSA in 2018 with my Bachelor’s in English and a minor in comparative literature. In 2020 I began my Master’s of Library and Information Science degree online at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and graduated in 2022 with a concentration in Archival Studies. I spent most of that time working in a public library where I got to see much of my graduate course work in action. Although I loved working in a public library, I found myself very excited by the courses focusing on academic librarianship and university archives.
What excites you about being the Digital Collections Specialist at UTSA?
I’m excited to be part of UTSA’s digital preservation journey. I believe the growth in the field will result in new and exciting things for the way we preserve the cultural history of our community. Assisting our Digital Archivist with our born-digital and physical collections in various stages of the collection’s life cycle will be a huge learning opportunity and a chance for me to contribute to our culturally rich community. Being part of such a driven and passionate team is also incredibly exciting and I’m looking forward to learning all I can from everyone!
What’s your favorite thing about working with digital archives so far?
I’m having a lot of fun working with our digitization tools! I’ve spent a good chunk of my time working on our Zeutschel machine and I’m always looking for ways to improve our already amazing image quality. Spending extended time working with physical materials to digitize them gives me the opportunity to really examine the contents which lets me not only learn about the specific collection it belongs to, but also how it connects to our community. So far, my favorite project I’ve digitized and uploaded has been The Eagle Bone Whistle newspaper for our Pleas McNeel Papers collection.
Workin’ From Can’t to Can’t: African-American Cowboys in Texas
While not well-represented in Hollywood depictions of the Old West, it is estimated that one in four cowboys was Black. Some of their legacies live on today as larger-than-life figures like Nat Love, Bill Pickett, and Bass Reeves (all of which have been depicted in recent Western films: 2019’s Hell on the Border and 2022’s The Harder They Fall). Others’ stories have been lost to time. Many historians have attempted to uncover these lost histories, such as Zaron Burnett III’s podcast “Black Cowboys”, while others have interviewed living cowboys about their work and lives.
Within the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC)’s Audiovisual Production Department Records is a small collection of videocassette (VHS) tapes. In celebration of February being Black History Month, we would like to highlight one of these programs produced by ITC back in 1995. Workin’ From Can’t to Can’t is a 27-minute documentary that features interviews with the following African-American cowboys aged sixty to ninety in Texas:
- Willie Brown
- E.J. Garza
- Toney Lott
- K.J. Oliver
- Reverend Mack Williams
- Nathaniel Youngblood
The title refers to the long days these cowhands worked, typically from dawn to dusk, or, as Reverend Mack Williams puts it, “Can’t see when you get up and can’t see when you lay down.” The entire documentary has been digitized and posted over on the Texas Archive of the Moving Image website. Accompanying this documentary is a curriculum guide, which is available in the UTSA Libraries Special Collections’ Digital Collections.
In addition to this documentary, UTSA Special Collections is home to a number of other items related to the history of African-American cowboys. In the Reflections on Texas Video Collection is a 1976 short program on Bill Pickett, the first African-American inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. In 2001, fourth-generation Black cowboy Leon Coffee was interviewed on his family history, how he was raised, as well as his life as a rodeo clown and bullfighter and the result is a 68-minute oral history that covers Coffee’s five decades of life up to that point. Finally, within our General Photograph Collection are several images of African-American cowhands in the early 20th century, including Can’t to Can’t interview subject Reverend Mack Williams.
Bibliography entries
Henderson, K. (1995). Workin’ From Can’t to Can’t: African-American Cowboys in Texas. Institute of Texan Cultures, https://utsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01UTXSANT_INST/15julip/alma99618603904621.
Nodjimbadem, K. “The Lesser-Known History of African-American Cowboys,” Smithsonian Magazine February 13, 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lesser-known-history-african-american-cowboys-180962144/.
Like today, the presidential election was a prominent feature of the news in 1924. There was also a Texas gubernatorial election. Just four years after women were allowed to vote, the winner was former First Lady of Texas Miriam A. Ferguson.
In 1924 San Antonio residents learned that William Randolph Hearst purchased The San Antonio Light newspaper. There would be numerous changes at the paper, including hiring a full-time staff photographer. Jack Specht filled the position. The San Antonio Light photographs featured here are his work, including one of Labor Leader Samuel Gompers, perhaps the last taken of him.
The Hearst Corporation donated these early staff photographs to the Institute of Texan Cultures in 1979. They are now part of UTSA Special Collections. Photographs published in the paper prior to the Hearst acquisition have never been located.
Dorrace Ferguson, at the Gunter Hotel, San Antonio.
Photographed December 3rd by Jack Specht.
(The San Antonio Light Collection, L-0001-F)
informing Miriam A. Ferguson that she has been elected governor of Texas,
Temple, November 5th. (General Photograph Collection, 091-0293.
Courtesy of Minnie Campbell)
096-0826. Courtesy of Felice Dominguez)
made by Lone Star Brewing Company during Prohibition.
Photographed by Harvey Patteson. (General Photograph Collection,
082-0650. Courtesy of Pioneer Flour Mills)
Somerset. (General Photograph Collection, 093-0216. Courtesy of
George Pyron, Sr.)
streetcars at the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad Station, San Antonio.
Photographed March 1st by Smith Studio.
(General Photograph Collection, 086-0149. Courtesy of John Kellogg Kight)
fire engine outside Fire Station No. 2 on South St. Mary’s Street, San Antonio.
(General Photograph Collection, 116-0034.
Courtesy of the San Antonio Fire Museum)
shortly after completing “Midnight,” a one-act novelty radio play, San Antonio.
Photographed in December by Jack Specht.
(The San Antonio Light Collection, L-0016-C)
Louise, Wharton County, Texas. Photographed by Charles Petter.
(General Photograph Collection, 083-0369). Courtesy Jim Ripple)
San Antonio Light Building shortly before a benefit to raise money for a
trip to Hollywood, San Antonio. Photographed in November by Jack Specht.
(The San Antonio Light Collection, L-0013-B)
demonstrates a low-altitude automatic parachute that he invented,
San Antonio. Photographed in December by Jack Specht.
(The San Antonio Light Collection, L-0018-A)
is removed from an International and Great Northern train after becoming ill
at a meeting in Mexico City. He died the following day at the St. Anthony Hotel,
San Antonio. Photographed December 12th by Jack Specht.
(The San Antonio Light Collection, L-0015-B)
fund the annual Christmas dinner for the 375 newsboys who deliver the
local newspapers, San Antonio. Photographed in December by Jack Specht.
(The San Antonio Light Collection, L-0080-V)
New in Digital Collections: For Our Times Digitized Videos
Recently added to our Digital Collections website are digitized episodes from the CBS series For Our Times from the John Phillip Santos Collection.
The UTSA Digital Collections website previously had 5 episodes from the series available to view. The completion of a recent digitization project adds about 15 new episodes of the series online.
Highlights from the newest batch of videos include:
- World Talk: The Meeting at Oxford Part 1 and Part 2
- This two-part special covers the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival held at Oxford. The meeting brought together religious and spiritual leaders to discuss global issues such as nuclear terror, homelessness, and global warming. Interviews included in these episodes are conducted with the Dali Lama, Mother Teresa, and Carl Saegen.
- From Mission to Ministry: Hispanic Spirituality Emerges
- This episode explores the Hispanic community’s relationship with the Catholic church. Story elements and footage featured in this episode come from San Antonio, Texas.
For Our Times was an educational program that aired from the late 1970s through the 1980s and focused on religious, political, and social issues occurring throughout the world. Multiple episodes of For Our Times were nominated for Daytime Emmy Awards, as listed below:
Daytime Emmy in Outstanding Special Class Program (1985)
- For Our Times: To See a World – Daytime Emmy Winner
- For Our Times: Exiles Who Never Left Home – Daytime Emmy-Nominated
- For Our Times: Is Anyone Listening? – Daytime Emmy-Nominated
- For Our Times: Family Farms – Daytime Emmy-Nominated
Daytime Emmy in Outstanding Special Class Program (1988)
- For Our Times: From the AIDS Experience: Our Spirits to Heal – Daytime Emmy-Nominated
Prior to digitization, these episodes were originally Umatic and VHS tapes from the John Phillip Santos collection. John Phillip Santos is a producer, journalist, author, filmmaker and professor from San Antonio, Texas. He was an executive producer for over 40 broadcast documentaries for CBS and PBS. He was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for the episode “From the AIDS Experience: Our Spirits to Heal” in 1988.
You can watch a selection of For Our Times episodes on our Digital Collections page here.
Sources:
Daytime Emmy Awards (1985). https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000206/1985/1
Daytime Emmy Awards (1988). https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000206/1988/1
John Phillip Santos Papers, MS 203, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections. https://www.txarchives.org/utsa/finding_aids/00143.xml
Ven a Comer 2023
We are happy to share that this year’s Ven a Comer has expanded from a fundraising dinner to a variety of events throughout Hispanic Heritage Month! Since 2017, UTSA Libraries has hosted a unique annual fundraising dinner in collaboration with Pearl, Hotel Emma, and the Consulate of Mexico in San Antonio. The event pairs a chef from Mexico with a local chef to create a multi-coursed dinner inspired by Special Collections’ Mexican Cookbook Collection. With this year’s additional events, more people are able to learn about and experience the Mexican Cookbook Collection through food and drink events.
UTSA Night at Restaurant Mixtli
Wednesday, September 20 • 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
812 S. Alamo St., Suite 103, San Antonio, Texas 78210
Partial proceeds from ticket sales on September 20th will be donated to the Mexican Cookbook Collection. Purchase tickets here.
Inspired by the Mexican Cookbook Collection, Mixtli chefs spent three months combing through over 50 books from the collection for their new menu, which will run to the end of September.
Ven a Tomar at Carriqui
Wednesday, September 27 • 7 p.m.
239 E. Grayson St., San Antonio, Texas 78215
In partnership with UTSA Libraries and the Consulado General de México en San Antonio, Carriqui will host Ven a Tomar, where guests will sample mezcal, cocktails and unique bites while learning from Mezcal expert Pedro Jiménez Gurría. Tickets are $65.
Ven a Comer Signature Dinner
Friday, September 29 • 6 to 10 p.m.
Hotel Emma, 136 E. Grayson St., San Antonio, Texas 78215
This year’s night of food, fun and drinks will be prepared by James Beard Foundation Award winner for Best Chef and Executive Chef and Owner of El Naranjo, Iliana de la Vega; San Antonio’s own Alexana Cabrera, Chef de Cuisine at Restaurant Mixtli; and James Beard Foundation Semifinalist and Pastry Chef for Hotel Emma, Sofia Tejeda, with a mezcal tasting by Gurría. Email Felipe Barrera, UTSA Libraries director of development, for tickets.
Ven a Comer Pachanga at UTSA’s Westside Community Center
Thursday, October 5 • 6 to 8 p.m.1310 Guadalupe St., San Antonio, Texas 78207
Join us for a culinary celebration on the lawn at the UTSA Westside Community Center, where UTSA Libraries will collect recipes and food memories. Eat your way through the Mexican Cookbook Collection as food trucks will be on hand selling bites inspired by cookbook collection recipes. Music will be provided by DJ Despeinada.
Advanced registration is required. The first 100 registrants receive complimentary food.
DIY Cookbook Workshop at UTSA’s Westside Community Center
Friday, October 6 • 9 a.m. to noon1310 Guadalupe St., San Antonio, Texas 78207
Join us for a cookbook-making workshop where you can assemble all your family recipes in one place. Bring your own recipes (printed or handwritten) to make a booklet to share with family and friends. Special Collections staff will provide examples, instruction and supplies. Books from the Mexican Cookbook Collection will be on display to serve as inspiration. The workshop is limited to 20 attendees.
For More Information on Ven a Comer and this year’s events go to the Ven a Comer website.
Texas Watermelon Photos for National Watermelon Day
We observe this occasion to showcase our photographs of watermelons. The earliest are family photographs, one dating to the early 1900s. People posing with their favorite summertime food made the group portrait more photogenic. Our collection also includes numerous photographs taken by photojournalists who regularly recorded the arrival of watermelons in local markets. These photographers also documented small-town watermelon festivals.
Since watermelons thrive in hot and sunny conditions, Texas is the perfect place to grow them. There are sequential harvests from South Texas to North Texas, starting in the spring and continuing to early fall. With the prominence of the watermelon crops in certain regions, some of the towns started festivals to honor the growers and promote the watermelon market. The festivals feature such activities as musical performances, parades, watermelon seed-spitting contests, and watermelon queen pageants.
These photographs illustrate the popularity of watermelons in Texas.
(San Antonio Light Collection, L-4803-E)
Photograph by Friedericke Recknagel.
(General Photograph Collection, 087-0067, courtesy of E. W. Ahlrich)
(General Photograph Collection, 100-0476, courtesy Grace Luckenbach White)
(General Photograph Collection, 087-0142, courtesy Theresa Gold)
New Braunfels, June 1933.
(San Antonio Light Collection, L-1465-J)
San Antonio, May 1954. (San Antonio Light Collection, L-4697-A)
Photograph by Buck Schiwetz. (E. M. “Buck” Schiwetz Collection, 107-1018-02-02,
courtesy Patricia Schiwetz Nelson)
San Antonio, June 1984. (San Antonio Express-News Collection, E-0238-060-21)
featuring watermelons grown on their farm, Weatherford, 1947.
(General Photograph Collection, 097-0076, courtesy Barbara Dent)
(General Photograph Collection, 077-0472-14)
City Park, Dilley, 1953. (San Antonio Light Collection, L-4616-K)
(San Antonio Express-News Collection, E-0474-017-08).
Introducing Our New Library Assistant IV
We are delighted to welcome our new Library Assistant IV, Diana Sanchez. Diana has been a Student Clerk with Special Collections since January 2022 during which she has assisted with the John Peace Library Reading Room as well as outreach, collection inventorying, and instruction.
Tell us a bit about your background.
I am a UTSA graduate for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees! I graduated in the Spring of 2021 with my Bachelor’s in History (with a double minor in Latin American Studies and Politics & Law). In the Spring of 2023, I graduated with my Master’s in History. My concentration in graduate school was modern Mexican history.
During graduate school, I began by working as a Graduate Research Assistant and a Reader/Grader. It was during my second semester that I got the opportunity that I had been waiting for, to work as a Student Worker at UTSA Libraries Special Collections. I was able to work with Special Collections for a majority of my graduate education, completing 3 semesters with the department upon graduation.
What excites you about being the Library Assistant IV at UTSA Special Collections?
The thing that excites me the most about being the new Library Assistant IV for the UTSA Libraries Special Collections are all the opportunities that I will have to work and interact directly with community members of San Antonio through outreach events. As someone with a background primarily in history and historical research, I am very excited to be a part of that link connecting researchers, community members, and students alike!
Being from the wider South Texas region, having been born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, I feel very connected to many of the communities that are prioritized both in the collection material content and through the many outreach events that Special Collections participates in. Even as a Student Worker, I found it incredibly fulfilling and exciting to be on the ground, getting to talk with anybody and everybody that was interested in or felt any sort of connection to our collections.
What’s your favorite thing about working with Special Collections so far?
So far, my favorite thing about working with the Special Collections is getting to delve into all the manuscript collections that are housed at the Graduate School & Research Building. Not only will I be doing a lot of retrievals for patrons, but I will also get to delve into many of the collections in order to answer research questions and possibly create my own research blog posts.
The Top Shelf 