Screw tape list for Steve, circa 1999
Approximately two dozen items have been added to the DJ Screw Photographs & Memorabilia digital collection in the UH Digital Library.
Many of these newly-added items were featured in the library exhibition DJ Screw and the Rise of Houston Hip Hop and have now been made available online. These include several tape lists and a variety of lyrics, along with photographs of DJ Screw as a child and an adult.
DJ Screw in baseball uniform, 1970s
The collection includes photographs, handwritten rap lyrics and song lists for “screw tapes,” along with flyers related to DJ Screw and his rap collective the Screwed Up Click. It also includes memorial service programs for DJ Screw, who died in 2000, and rappers Fat Pat and HAWK.
The DJ Screw Papers are currently being processed in Special Collections and will be available to the public once that process is complete. In the meantime, be sure to visit the digital collection to take a look at these items and others related to Houston’s hip hop history, and take a look at previous blog coverage of this digital collection, DJ Screw, and the related exhibit and conference.
Folio 130 verso
An exciting new Special Collections digital collection is now available in the UH Digital Library. This collection features a fifteenth century manuscript, the Book of Hours, Use of Reims.
Created in Northern France, this book of hours contains beautifully illustrated and handwritten pages. The text, written on parchment, is in both Latin and Old French, and the scribe is identifed as Paulinus de Sorcy.
From folio 64 recto
While many medieval manuscripts feature images that are closely related to their text, this one is primarily illustrated with marginalia. These whimsical images enliven the borders of various pages and contain both humans and animals. In one illustration, a man plays a harp. In another, a monkey or ape inspects a vial of urine in a satire of medieval medicine.
The digital collection is organized into three objects — one contains the complete manuscript of almost 200 leaves, one highlights the illuminated pages, and the third shows the binding and edges. This beautiful manuscript is an exciting addition to our digital collections, so be sure to check it out soon!
Blanche Espy in her first evening dress, circa 1912.
Materials from the Carey C. Shuart Women’s Archive & Research Collection are featured in the latest digital collection from Special Collections. Blanche Espy Chenoweth, Her Life, Her Times, contains photographs documenting the life of Blanche Espy Chenoweth during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The collection contains 67 individual photographs and a 48-page scrapbook. The photographs include formal portraits and snapshots, which provide examples both of formal dress and photographic customs from the time period and shots of life unscripted.
Chenoweth was a a lecturer, writer, and voice on the radio who covered topics related to women’s social customs, homemaking, and general well-being. She was born in Iowa in 1875 and spent the last 25 years of her life in Houston, prior to her death in 1960.
Blanche E. Chenoweth (far right) and others enjoy watermelon while in North Carolina, dated August 1923.
Throughout her adult life she lived and travelled in various cities giving lectures on women’s dress and grooming and their importance in a happy life. In the 1920s, she lectured and wrote on the problems of women at the Chautauqua Institute in New York, and in the 1930s she had a radio program in Chicago which gave advice on women’s personal problems.
Visit the collection in the UH Digital Library to see all of the photographs!
2005, A Green Tie Affair
Our latest digital collection, and the first from the Houston History Archives, is now available in the UH Digital Library. The Park People Annual Awards Dinner Invitations includes invitations for events that reflect the mission championed by The Park People: to preserve and expand green space in Houston.
The awards began as a simple affair in 1981, and invitations from from 1992-2005 are included in this digital collection. These creative invitations reflect not only The Park People’s success but also the spirit of woodsy and easy elegance that characterized the organization.
The Park People emerged in 1978 as an organization devoted to advocacy for parks and green space in the Houston area. Following the environmental protest organizations of the 1960s, The Park People became a model for collaboration and cooperation by inviting government, business interests, non-profit organizations, and private citizens to join the effort to preserve and expand Houston’s green spaces.
The Park People relied on multiple avenues of community outreach to carry their message and expand support, and the awards ceremony became an anticipated avenue of outreach. An innovation in 1981, the awards event grew into a gala affair welcomed by those who spearheaded community-wide efforts to promote parks and green space.
These invitations are part of the The Park People Records, which can be viewed in the Special Collections Reading Room during normal business hours.
For more information about The Park People Records and the invitations, contact Dr. Terry Tomkins-Walsh.
A new digital collection, the UH Women’s Studies Living Archives Recordings, is now available in the UH Digital Library.
This collection of 49 videos recorded between 1995 and 2009 document the Living Archives series. This series of events, sponsored by the UH Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program and the Friend’s of Women’s Studies, consist of panel discussions and interviews with topics covering diverse aspects of women’s lives in Houston and the issues that affect them.
The videos in this collection cover such topics as women in sports, female politicians, women and religion, motherhood, and breast cancer survival. Among the notable women interviewed are former mayor Kathy Whitmire, women’s activist Nikki Van Hightower, and former city councilwoman Eleanor Tinsley.