The State Library and Archives of Texas : a history, 1835-1962 / David B. Gracy II; foreword by Peggy D. Rudd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gracy, David B., II, 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Texas State Library and Archives Commission--History.

Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Library commissions--Texas--History.

Library commissions.

Archives--Texas--History.

Archives.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Texas State Library and Archives Commission celebrated its centennial in 2009. To honor that milestone, former State Archivist David Gracy has taken a retrospective look at the agency's colorful and sometimes contentious history as Texas's official information provider and record keeper. In this book, he chronicles more than a century of efforts by dedicated librarians and archivists to deliver the essential, nonpartisan library and archival functions of government within a political environment in which legislators and governors usually agreed that libraries and archives were good and needed—but they disagreed about whatever expenditure was being proposed at the moment. Gracy recounts the stories of persevering, sometimes controversial state librarians and archivists, and commission members, including Ernest Winkler, Elizabeth West (the first female agency head in Texas government), Fannie Wilcox, Virginia Gambrell, and Louis Kemp, who worked to provide Texans the vital services of the state library and archives—developing public library service statewide, maintaining state and federal records for use by the public and lawmakers, running summer reading programs for children, providing services for the visually impaired, and preserving the historically significant records of Texas as a colony, province, republic, and state. Gracy explains how the agency has struggled to balance its differing library and archival functions and, most of all, to be treated as a full-range information provider, and not just as a collection of disparate services.

Contents:

"To have the Texas people see the necessity for it" : establishing the library and archival functions of government, 1835-1909

"Bricks without straw" : the Winkler, Klaerner, and West years, 1909-1925

"I don't feel as good as I would if I could" : the Rogan and first Wilcox years, 1925-1932

"The State Library needs space, money, and official understanding

and the greatest of these is the last" : the middle Wilcox years, 1932-1935

"A diffusion of interests and objectives" : the final Wilcox years, 1935-1945

"There are many hurdles to jump before the race is won

if it is won" : the Henshaw years, 1946-1950

"More grief than at present" : the Connerly and Gibson years, 1950-1953

"If and when the glad day comes" : the Harwell, Peace, and beginning Winfrey years, 1954-1962.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-292-79301-4

OCLC:

642685767