The U.S.S. Houston (CA-30) was launched on September 7, 1929 in Newport News, VA.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Houston (CA-30). The Houston was the flagship of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet during World War II. On March 1, 1942 she was sunk by the Japanese during the Battle of Sunda Strait, and her surviving crew members were taken prisoners of war.

In the late 1940s, the U.S.S. Houston Survivors Association was formed. In addition to publishing a newsletter for survivors and their families and attending annual reunions, the association has done much to preserve the memory of the ship and her crew. The members collected historically valuable documents and memorabilia about the Houston, which they donated to the University of Houston Libraries.

The materials donated by the association along with others acquired by the Libraries make up a number of collections in Special Collections, along with a permanent exhibit housed on the second floor of the M.D. Anderson Library. This exhibit is the location of a survivors event each year that marks the anniversary of the Houston‘s sinking. Special Collections also has an online exhibit with detailed information about the ship, her crew, the war, the prison camps, and the survivors.

Archival materials relating to the U.S.S. Houston can be found in the Cruiser Houston Collection, the William A. Bernrider Collection, the Samuel Milner U.S.S. Houston and 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Papers, and the Captain Albert H. Rooks Papers.

For more coverage of the anniversary and related events, see the Bayou City History blog, the Houston Chronicle, and the Cypress Times.

DJ Screw at Samplified Digital Recording Studio, 1996

Get a sneak peak and the upcoming DJ Screw and the Rise of Houston Hip Hop exhibit in the new DJ Screw Photographs & Memorabilia digital collection!

DJ Screw was born Robert Earl Davis, Jr. in 1971. As a teenager on the South side of Houston, he began DJ-ing and making mixtapes of his favorite rap songs for friends. By the early nineties, he had begun slowing down the music on his tapes to a hypnotic crawl and emphasizing certain words and phrases by repeating them manually. Screw sold these “chopped and screwed” mixtapes directly to eager fans.

Mixtape made by DJ Screw for Lil' Randy and Ron'O, 1999

Friends and local rappers began ordering personal tapes from Screw, and he invited the rappers to freestyle, or improvise, over beats at the beginning and end of the tapes. This group became known as the Screwed Up Click, and over time, the rappers themselves developed followings and many released successful independent solo albums.  in 1998 DJ Screw opened up Screwed Up Records and Tapes, a shop that sold only his mixtapes. It is estimated that DJ screw sold hundreds of thousands of mixtapes, in addition to releasing four studio albums.

On November 16, 2000, DJ Screw was found dead in his recording studio at the age of 29, his death ruled an overdose of codeine and other drugs.

A page from a notebook belonging to SUC member HAWK

Among the items in this collection are photos of DJ Screw and the Screwed Up Click and funeral programs for DJ Screw and other SUC members. The collection also includes a “screw tape” and the notebook of rapper HAWK. In the notebook,  you can see HAWK’s creative process as he works out rhymes for his raps. You can also see  how well he played dominoes, since he kept score in the same notebook.

These materials are a part of the larger exhibit that will be on view at the M.D. Anderson Library from March 19 through September 21. At the conclusion of the exhibit, selected materials will be added to this digital collection.

Also in March, the University of Houston and Rice University will host Awready!: The Houston Hip Hop Conference. To learn more about the conference and related events, and to register, check out the conference web site.

Watch this blog for more information about the exhibit, conference, and future digital collection additions.

The Alonso S. Perales exhibit, currently on view in the M.D. Anderson Library, now comes complete with QR codes! These codes provide quick access to interviews with scholars and family members, as well as English translations of the Spanish-language documents contained in the exhibit. You can also access the videos and translations at the online exhibit page.

Tomorrow, January 13, In Defense of My People: Alonso S. Perales and the Development of Mexican-American Public Intellectuals, a conference highlighting the life and works of the civil rights leader, will be held in the library’s Rockwell Pavilion. The conference will feature scholarly papers on Perales’ work in civil rights, influence, and more.

Special Collections holds the Alonso S. Perales Papers, which document the life, work, and related interests of the civil rights leader from his birth in 1898 until well after his death in 1960. A digital collection of photographs from the papers can be seen in the UH Digital Library, and his papers can be seen in the Special Collections Reading Room.

Special Collections and the UH Libraries Web Services Department have been working together to put together a exhibit web page about the upcoming physical exhibit and conference, In Defense of My People: Alonso S. Perales and the Development of Mexican-American Public Intellectuals. This online exhibit page also contains videos featuring Perales’ children and University of Houston scholars discussing Perales’ life and the materials.

Alonso Perales (1898-1960) was a civil rights lawyer and diplomat. From the 1920s until his death, Perales remained a prominent political leader, particularly as a defender of Mexican-American civil rights. Special Collections holds his papers, which document his life and works.

The exhibit, which will run from December 21 through March 1, will explore Perales’ early life and family, his political life and diplomatic service, and his lifelong crusade against discrimination against Mexican Americans. The conference on January 13 will feature scholarly presentations covering a variety of topics related to Perales and his work.

All four videos can be viewed from the web page or via this YouTube playlist, and more information about the Alonso S. Perales Papers can be found in the finding aid.

Janai Smith, today’s guest writer, was the first Special Collections intern in a new partnership with African American Studies. Throughout the Fall semester she worked on the exhibit DJ Screw and the Rise of Houston Hip Hop as well as contributing to other projects related to Houston Hip Hop. Janai will graduate from the University of Houston in 2012. 

For the past four months I have spent at least one day a week in the Special Collections department of the library. It has been an experience to say the least.  This internship is not a mere paper pushing job, as some may assume, but a chance to be a part of the process of collecting and disseminating the beauty of history and all it has to offer.  In the world of online searches and “remote controlled research”, the importance of the tangible parts of history often get overlooked and sometimes lost.

African American Studies intern Janai Smith spent the fall semester working on the upcoming exhibit, DJ Screw and the Rise of Houston Hip Hop.

One may read this and say to themselves that I am being “dramatic” or even just nostalgic but the truth is that DJ Screw was a major contributor to the hip hop culture of Houston, Texas. Historically, the contributions of African Americans to the “American” culture have been minimized to increases in crime rates, dangerous drug usage fads (i.e. sipping syrup), and other negative aspects that have been unfoundedly correlated with the hip hop culture. But this internship has allowed me to examine the hip hop culture, not only from the stand point of a fan but from an academic view.

As a psychology major I have learned that what appears on the outside is not necessarily a reflection of what is being felt on the inside and that a person’s life is affected by environment as much as it is by innate factors. Through this internship I have gotten a chance to get a more in-depth view of the lives of people who have influenced my life and the lives of my friends through their musical and lyrical expressions and will continue to do so for years to come; not just the commercialized part of their life that was formatted to be on display but also some of the private aspects that made them human.

This has been an enjoyable experience working with the staff of Special Collections as well as being able to be a contributing party to the preservation of a piece of my own culture and in a way being a part of the telling of my culture’s story.