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The Texas Book – Panel Discussion Videos - Don E. Carleton
Don E. Carleton:
Good evening. I'm Don Carleton and I'm the very lucky guy who has the happy job of directing the Center for American History. Welcome to the official launch of The Texas Book which is the product of a major project of the Center for American History. Now as most of you know, the center has the largest Texas history collection in existence. And we have nationally important archives on southern history, congressional history, and news media history among a number of other special strengths. You may also know that the Sam Rayburn Museum, the John Nance Garner Museum, and Winedale are also units of the center. What you may not know however, is that the center is the most important resource in existence for the history of the university. We house the historical archives of the university and the papers of many of our most prominent faculty members, past and present. We also have been engaged and continue to be engaged in major projects to document the fascinating history of this university. One of those projects is our University of Texas at Austin Oral History Program. This three-year initiative is a collaborative program, or should say a collaborative effort between the Office of the President and the Center for American History and it is funded by the president of this university. The project's goal is to record in-depth interviews with individuals who have had the greatest impact on the development of UT Austin, including regents, presidents, administrators, faculty members, and students.
The project began exactly one year ago when we appointed Erin Purdy as the project oral historian and I'd like for Erin to wave and identify herself. This is our oral historian. At this point, Erin has recorded approximately one hundred hours of interviews with many more to follow. She has a great research team in place, composed of Ralph Elder and Mary Ellen Oliver, if you guys would raise your hands. I'd like to thank Senior Vice President Shirley Bird Perry who is my co-administrator on this project. Shirley Bird… [applause] I think as most of the people in this room know or are aware, no one loves the history and traditions of this university more than Shirley and she has been instrumental in securing the funding and participation of the administration for this project.
Now we've had great cooperation from our interviewees. I'm excited by the results that Erin has been able to pull in on this project and I know Shirley has been pleased and we've been very delighted by the cooperation and help that we've received from the various folks that we've asked to spend time with and do interviews with and we appreciate that very much.
Now, I saw Bill Livingston a few minutes ago, but I think Bill had to leave early. Bill who is a former university president and current senior vice president of this university is donating his oral history to the project. He is doing a separate project with Mike Gillette and those tapes will be coming to the center.
Now, the Center for American History is an active research center that supports and facilitates and produces research on U.S. history. The results of the research we sponsor can be found in our exhibits such as the one we now have on display in Washington, D.C., on women in the U.S. Senate. They can be found in our lecture series such as the Winedale Spring Symposium. They can be found in our video documentaries such as Last Best Hope which was recently broadcast nationwide on PBS, and, of course, in our books. Now the major outlet for most of our sponsored research is the University of Texas Press where we have a book series called "Focus on American History." The Texas Book which was one of our university history projects has been published in our series at the University of Texas Press. I would like to acknowledge the good folks from UT Press, especially Joanna Hitchcock, its director. If you'd stand and be recognized…Joanna…. [applause]
Now the idea for The Texas Book came from a series of meetings and discussions that Larry Speck, who is with us tonight, conducted campus wide back in the late 1990s. The purpose of those discussions was to identify ways to help get good and accurate information out to the public about the university. Among the various ideas that flowed from those discussions was the one that led to this book. The person most responsible for pushing this idea forward was Susan Claggett who brought the idea to me because of the center's role in documenting the university's past. I understand that Susan has another university mission that she's carrying forward tonight so she couldn't be here, but I do want to emphasize the central role that Susan Claggett has played in this project from the very beginning. She brought the project to us because we are the university's history. That's what we do. I had also recently published a biography of Major J. R. Parten who had served as a university regent and who had been an influential figure in the university's development for more than six decades. Susan tried to persuade me to edit the book, but I knew there was no way that this thing would ever be finished if I did it, so we did agree to sponsor it however. And we sponsored it, as I said earlier, with the generous support from the Office of the President. Everything was in place except for one thing. All we needed was an editor, a very key crucial thing. Dick Holland who has three degrees and a long record of service to the university seemed to me to be the obvious choice. After a few lunches, that I paid for, to discuss the what, where, and when of the book, Dick jumped in and he came on board. And I was happy, and more important, I remain happy today that he did it
With significant help from Center for American History staff member David Dettmer, Dick proceeded to gather and edit the contents of The Texas Book. Dick and David did an outstanding job. David Dettmer's also here. David, the ever modest David Dettmer, please stand and be recognized. [applause]
And now we have this wonderful book that is so well designed and printed by the talented folks at UT Press. And we are here tonight to hear Dick and three of his contributors give some remarks about their contributions. Now before I introduce the panel however, I want to recognize a few of the other contributors who are with us here tonight, specifically Harold Billings. Harold, who was the long-time director of the General Libraries. Harold's over here with his hand up. [applause]
And Rich Oram of the HRC [Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center]…where's Rich, Rich stand up. [applause]