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Houston Negro Hospital Digitization Project Covered in Archivists’ Newsletter

Digitization, Houston History Archives

The Archives and Archivists of Color Roundtable, a group within the Society of American Archivists, recently featured an article written by Special Collections’ Valerie Prilop and Digital Services’ Nicci Westbrook about an ongoing project to digitize papers covering the founding and early operation of the Houston Negro Hospital.

Houston Negro Hospital insurance cardThe hospital, located near the University of Houston campus, was dedicated on Juneteenth in 1926 and opened to patients the following year. It allowed African American doctors to admit their patients and gave community members the opportunity to buy “insurance” which entitled them to treatment in the hospital. The papers being digitized, which come from Special Collections’ Joseph S. Cullinan Papers, provide information about the initial founding and early operation of the hospital and about a number of problems, including conflict between the African American and white boards.

For more information about the hospital and the project, take a look at the article on page 4 of the AAC newsletter.

 

Rap Icon Z-Ro Visits Special Collections

Collections, Houston Hip Hop

Last month Z-Ro, Houston rap icon and member of the Screwed Up Click, visited with Librarian Julie Grob here in Special Collections and talked a little bit about the upcoming exhibit DJ Screw and the Rise of Houston Hip Hop.

Take a look (and please pardon the ad):

The Screwed Up Click was a group of freestylers and friends who were associated with the late DJ Screw, developer of the “chopped and screwed” genre of hip hop. The exhibit will be on display and open to the public from March 19 – September 21, 2012 in M.D. Anderson Library on the University of Houston campus.

To inquire about donations, please contact Julie at jgrob@uh.edu. For updates about the exhibit and the Houston hip hop collection, follow Julie on Twitter.

New Historic Maps Digital Collection

Collections, Digitization, Rare Books

Reynold's Political Map of the United StatesCheck out Special Collections’ newest project in the UH Digital Library!

The Historic Maps digital collection contains 30 maps from Houston and Texas, dating from 1840 to 1956. Included are maps of Camp Logan, the World War I-era Army training camp that was the site of a 1917 race riot. A map from 1904 shows cross sections of the Galveston sea wall, and an 1890s map of the Houston Heights features illustrations of residential and public buildings.

Not all the maps are focused on the Houston area.  A Texas map from 1876 shows the boundaries of Indian Territory and has insets of Austin and Galveston, and a 1881 map of the Southwest shows the major railroads and gives information about land area and crops. “Reynolds’s Political Map of the United States” from 1856 depicts all the free and slave states and territories of the Union at the time of the second Missouri Compromise.

But that’s not all! Take a look at this great collection in the Digital Library, or visit Special Collections to see them in person.