Browse Exhibits (24 total)

On May 10, 1869, the last rail was laid, a golden spike was driven, and the Union Pacific Railroad, proceeding west from Omaha, and the Central Pacific Railroad, proceeding east from Sacramento, met at Promontory, Utah, having built together the first transcontinental railroad in the world.

Our exhibit of original pamphlets, maps, photographs, government surveys, and other materials tells the story of this “highway to the Pacific,” as promoters often called it. A great technological achievement, the railroad was the subject of intense political debate, and played a leading role in the long-term development of the American west.

DeGolyer Library presents a digital companion exhibit to a traveling exhibition curated by book collector and bibliographer Caroline Schimmel featuring materials from her own collection. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the School of Library Service at Columbia University, Schimmel, over the last 45 years, has gathered over 23,000 narratives and representations of women in the American wilderness, including the North and South Poles. The fiction portion of her collection, except for the items included in the exhibit, was donated to Penn in 2014. She continues to seek and document known and unknown intrepid women, both in fact and fiction and reminds us that "anonymous" is most likely a woman. The 145 books, photographs, manuscripts, and memorabilia in the exhibit, by 101 women and one man and dating from 1682 to 2015, reflect the sweep of women's experiences in the American wilderness. The materials range from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (1705), Maria Sibylla Merian's hand-printed and hand-colored copy of her monumental study of flora and fauna of Surinam; sharpshooter and entertainer Annie Oakley's travel trunk and gloves, as well as an envelope she shot through the small printed heart from 20 feet away; Mary Godfrey's illustrated account of the "horrid massacre" of her family in 1825; Dale Evans's scruffy rhinestoned pink boots; and much more. 

The purpose of this exhibit is to survey roughly the first 100 years of books for children with settings in the American West, highlighting some of the characteristics of the genre and drawing on a range of examples from the DeGolyer collection.

“Western” juvenile books mirror many of the same preoccupations of American children’s literature as a whole.  In the earliest period, the didactic impulse tends to dominate.  After the Civil War, with the appearance of dime novels, the ingredients for the formulaic western become established, and juvenile books participate in this popular trend.  Entertainment, rather than stern moral instruction, is given free rein. In fact, one of the great practitioners of formula fiction, Horatio Alger, also wrote “westerns,” in which his heroes follow the same upward trajectory out on the prairies and in the mountains as they do on the streets of New York.

Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is now regarded as a classic of American literature but in our exhibit it is placed in its original context, with other “boys’ books” of the 1880s. By the end of the period, the series book comes to fore, with both male and female protagonists. The “Ranch Girls” series is particularly notable.

Children’s books are not only fun to read (whether readers are 8 or 80) but they also tell us a good deal about the times in which they were written and published. One could study, for example, the way Native Americans are depicted in children’s books, or family life, or the westering experience itself.

Children’s books on the American West published in Europe for European audiences have seldom been studied. Many of the authors were prolific and deserve to be better known and studied in the context of the publishing economy of the time.  In short, these “small books” can support interesting advanced research projects.

Bill Wittliff spent two decades as the creative force behind The Encino Press (1963-1983), which garnered more than 100 awards for its publications. Alongside his wife Sally, Wittliff established a company that became synonymous with Southwestern literature, exceptional book design, and fine press printing and publishing. In these early days of regional publishing Wittliff found authors and artists, and they found him. 

Texas native Virgil Musick also noticed something special in The Encino Press. A former Army radar operator at the North Pole in the early 1950s and later the founder of a transportation consulting company, Musick pursued an interest in Bill Wittliff’s work, including his time at Southern Methodist University Press and The Encino Press. His collection includes first editions and signed works, many with personal notes from Wittliff to Musick. In addition to books, Musick also assembled broadsides, ephemera, prints, and correspondence. In 2016 Virgil Musick donated his collection to DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University.

The DeGolyer Library celebrates Andy Hanson’s long career in Dallas where he was a staff photographer for the Dallas Times Herald, covering society, politics, the performing arts, and the major news events of the day. The exhibit will highlight his vast photographic archive, held at the library’s Prints and Photographs Collection.