Cash Money Millionaires, logo artwork

The growth of our Houston Hip Hop Collections continues with the recent publication of the Pen & Pixel Graphics, Inc. Records finding aid.

Bling!

Academics and “ballers” alike have heard the term and street cred is unnecessary to catch its meaning.  It is what John Nova Lomax of the Houston Press described as a “false onomatopoeia… the sound a jewel or precious metal would make if it could be heard.”  In 1992, as the twentieth century waned and the twenty-first century threatened to render the concept of “album art” obsolete, Shawn and Aaron Brauch founded Pen & Pixel Graphics, Inc. and went about helping to define the visual imagery that would become associated with so many hip hop artists from the Dirty South and beyond.

Bling-bling!

Labels like Rap-A-Lot, No Limit, and Cash Money Records came to rely on the Brauch brothers to create visually dense, hyper-stylized images of that “false onomatopoeia,” the monetary excess and conspicuous consumption contrasted against a reality of poverty, struggle, and reclamation.  This imagery became the face of a new, emerging sound in hip hop.  Given the pervasive influence of this visual style on an entire era of hip hop history, we are very excited to have this detailed finding aid now available to assist scholars in their research.

Snoop Dogg, Da Game is to Be Sold, Not Told, poster flat

The Pen & Pixel Graphics, Inc. Records contain digital files, posters, t-shirts, and other promotional material for artists like Snoop Dogg, Geto Boys, DJ Screw, and others.  Give the finding aid a look, indulge in the sampling recently published in our Digital Library, investigate some of our other collections, and come see us when you’re ready to take a closer look at some visual hip hop history.

This week not only marks the arrival of the fall semester and the return of students to the University of Houston campus but, as mentioned earlier in the week, it also marks the arrival of our newest fellow, Stacey Lavender.

As the Houston Arts and History Archives Fellow, Stacey will assist with the processing of archival collections and other tasks associated with the Performing Arts, Houston & Texas History, and Houston Hip Hop collecting areas.

In regards to what drew her to this fellowship, Stacey writes:

I was definitely excited that the position was specifically directed at recent graduates and that I would have the opportunity to work with several different types of collections. I also have just always had the eventual goal of working in a university library and I hadn’t had the opportunity to do that during graduate school. So I thought this would be a really great way to take the skills and knowledge I had from my previous work and educational experiences and learn to use them in a university library setting.

A native of the greater Houston area, Stacey joins us from Michigan where she earned her MS in Information from the University of Michigan.  While in Ann Arbor she also worked at the U.S. Geological Survey, Great Lakes Science Center, as a Science Records Intern, and as a Student Archivist at the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor.  Earning her BA in History at Rice, she also has experience as a Records Specialist at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

We are very excited to welcome Stacey and have her lending her expertise to the UH Special Collections.

It’s been a busy few months here in Special Collections. While many Houstonians flocked to beaches and waterparks, researchers beat the heat by spending long hours in our air-conditioned Reading Room. Our team of Librarians and Archivists, meanwhile, buckled down to make more collections available and to update our offerings.

Archival Collections:

A couple of the new finding aids worth checking out are the Houston Hip Hop Recording Artists Collection and the UH Women’s Resource Center Records. And collections incorporating new material into revised finding aids include the Women in the Visual and Literary Arts Records and the Houston Area Women’s Center Photographs.

Website:

The Special Collections website has also undergone a facelift this summer, with new pages highlighting some of our collecting areas: Architecture & Planning; Contemporary Literature; Hispanic Collections; Houston & Texas History; Performing Arts; and University Archives.

Comings and Goings:

We wished farewell this summer to Alison Clemens, our Houston and Texas History Archives Fellow who took a permanent position at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. This week, we welcome our new Houston Arts & History Archives Fellow, Stacey Lavender, who comes to us from the University of Michigan.

General Info:

Remember, here in Special Collections we have a number of tools to help with your classwork or research. We collect, preserve, and make available archives, rare books, and other great materials of cultural and historical significance. So if you need to use primary sources, be sure to check us out.

Our summer hours (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm) continue through September 6. On September 7, we’ll start our fall hours, which means we’ll also be open most Saturdays from 12n-4pm. If you plan to visit our Reading Room and aren’t sure when we’re open, you can always check out our hours online.

Welcome back to school, Coogs!

title page of “The Status of Women at the University of Houston,” October 2007

We are pleased to share that the University Women’s Commission Records and University of Houston Women’s Resource Center Records have newly published finding aids in our Carey C. Shuart Women’s Archive and Research Collection.

As the University moved into the 21st century, President Arthur K. Smith appointed a commission of 24 UH-affiliated women to study the role of women in the University and address the issues and concerns of women on campus.  In time, male voices were added to the Commission and the report emerging at the end of the study suggested a number of recommendations to guide the administration of the University since.  One of the major recommendations, which came to fruition in 2004, was the establishment of the Women’s Resource Center.

certificate from the Governor of Texas, commemorating the opening of the Women’s Resource Center at the University of Houston

The University Women’s Commission Records include the expected meeting minutes as well as documents establishing the organization, operational procedures, and priorities of the Commission.  In addition, the records outline research and statistics, including  surveys, assembled by the Commission, various reports of findings, including executive summaries, as well as materials documenting the establishment of a mentoring program.

The University of Houston Women’s Resource Center Records provide a glimpse of the Center’s young history of service to the UH community.  Materials include correspondence as well as information related to programs and lectures presented by the Center.  It will be an informative and telling pleasure to watch this collection grow over time, reflecting the Center and University’s development into the 21st century.

Take a “research break” from whatever you’re doing and give these new finding aids a look or, better yet, come see the collections for yourself.

cover and title page of “El Juguete Roto” by Facundo Recalde, 1925; from the Jones Latin American Drama Collection

For over four decades Dr. Willis Knapp Jones studied, taught, and lectured on the subject of Spanish and other Romance languages.  Earning his MA from Penn State University and his PhD from the University of Chicago, Dr. Jones would go on to teach for a short time at Penn State before settling into his career at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.  Throughout, he traveled and taught in Chile, Uruguay, England, and Ecuador.  It was during his travels through Latin America that Dr. Jones went about acquiring the breadcrumbs of numerous, visually stunning, theatre programs (dating from the late 1930s through the early 1960s) and an even larger library of original plays, including rare and unpublished titles, and critical works related to the study of Latin American theatre.  After his “retirement” in 1963, he published Beyond Spanish American Footlights, a seminal English-language study of the history of Latin American theatre.

When Dr. Jones retired, the University of Houston Special Collections acquired his library related to Latin American theatre.  These materials include the previously mentioned programs making up the Willis Knapp Jones Latin American Theatre Programs collection as well as over 1,000 volumes Dr. Jones acquired over the years, constituting the Jones Latin American Drama Collection.  Researchers with an interest in our Performing Arts collections will certainly want to take a look at these programs and texts.  In addition, given Dr. Jones’s analysis of theatre as a barometer of the social mores, political leanings, and history of a nation, the resources from his library may also serve to complement scholars interested in visiting us to conduct research in our growing Hispanic Collections.

When you have a moment, do look through the detailed finding aid for the Latin American Theatre Programs or peruse the catalog of plays and come take advantage of these incredibly rich and rare resources.