New Acquisitions Highlights
Below are a few of the titles we have received lately at Texas/Dallas History & Archives.
-- Hip to the Trip: A Cultural History of Route 66, by Peter B. Dedek.
This new history of what was officially named United States Highway 66 includes many pictures of the buildings and other structures that define the unique look and feel of this important transportation route. It includes 14 color plates of postcards depicting scenes along the roadway, as well as photos taken during the last decade of interesting sights.
-- Oswald in New Orleans, by Harold Weisberg; and The Zenith Secret, by Bradley Ayers.
Both these acquisitions are related to our John F. Kennedy Assassination collections. The Weisberg book was originally published in 1967, providing information about Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities and acquaintances in New Orleans primarily during the summer of 1963, a few months before the assassination of President Kennedy. The Zenith Secret discusses the history and operations of Zenith Technical Enterprises, a corporation in Miami that allegedly served as a cover for a Central Intelligence Agency field operations office. The author discusses his involvement with this office, operations against Fidel Castro in Cuba, and his acquaintance with persons thought to be associated with plots to assassinate President Kennedy.
Help Identify Photos in our Collections
Can you help us identify lost people and places? Visit our unidentified photographs page and see. We will continue to add new images, and will post those recently identified as we receive your responses.
*** When submitting, please let us know if you do not wish to have your name credited with an answer. ***
Manuscript Finding Aids
To improve access to our manuscript collections, we are translating our finding guides into Encoded Archival Description (EAD) format and posting them on the Texas/Dallas website’s manuscripts and archives page. EAD guides created recently are:
-- Cochran, Jerry Bywaters, Dance Collection
-- Craig, Mary, St. Louis World's Fair Letters
-- Texas Society of Professional Engineers, Dallas Chapter
-- Junius Heights Historical Collection
-- Lone Star Sailing Fleet Collection, LS13 Class Association Records
-- Hart, Jim, Dallas City Council Papers
-- Kessler Stevens Book Club Scrapbooks
-- American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Wives Club - Dallas Collection
Did You Know?
The Government Documents Division, on the sixth floor, has local, state, and federal publications. These include cultural resources reports, particularly for Dallas and other area counties. These are not all cataloged, so if you are looking for a report generated though a government-funded study, call Government Documents to see if they have the document. The government publications reference desk number is 214-670-1468.
Just a Reminder—Texas Heritage Online
The Texas/Dallas division is participating in a Texas State Library and Archives Commission project to provide a tool to search for photographs, maps, and other digital resources found in libraries, museums, and archives across Texas. This tool, Texas Heritage Online, is now up and running. This offers patrons and researchers another means of accessing Texas/Dallas photographs that have been digitized as well as the Murphy and Bolanz map collection. As the Texas Heritage Online federated search tool grows, it should become an invaluable aid to Texas researchers and historians.