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The University of Texas at Austin

Collections

Strengths - Texas History

The Eugene C. Barker Texas History Collection was created in 1945 and named in honor of University of Texas professor Eugene Campbell Barker, a pioneer in the field of Texas history. The Barker Collection includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, photographs, broadsides, and recorded sound and constitutes the most extensive collection of Texas-related material in existence. Includes: the Bexar Archives, 300,000 pages of Spanish colonial and Mexican Provincial records of Texas, from 1717 to 1836; the Texas Declaration of Independence printed in San Felipe de Austin in 1836; Lt. Col. Jose Enrique de la Pena's eyewitness description of the Texas Revolution, including his controversial account of David Crockett's death at the Alamo; the Governor Dolph and Mrs. Janey Briscoe 1849 daguerreotype of the Alamo.

View Focus on Texas History: Colonization through Annexation online exhibit.


Texas Memorial Museum Texas History Collections/Artifacts Swenson Coin and Medallion Collection, the first gift ever given to the University. Valuable artworks by noted German-Texan painters Richard Petri and Hermann Lungkwitz; a tinted portrait of Stephen F. Austin painted on ivory that also contains a lock of his hair; a historic quilt collection; a set of surveying chain, pins, tripod, and carrying sack used by Horatio Chriesman to survey Austin's colony; paintings by Nannie Huddle, noted Austin wildflower painter and student of Elisabet Ney; paintings by Mary Motz Wills of Texas wildflowers, many of which today are endangered; and prints of Erwin Smith photographs of ranching and cowboy life purchased by the University for the 1936 Texas Centennial celebrations in Austin.